India’s fertiliser ministry has sought to double its budgeted subsidy fund for the current fiscal year amid a global price rally, a government official said, as the South Asian nation increasingly counts the mounting cost of the Iran war, Reuters reports.
“Department of fertiliser has already asked for doubling of fertiliser subsidy with barely three months into the financial year. We are ramping up domestic capacity to reduce imports,” the official said, adding New Delhi did not expect global prices to come down.
The Indian government has also given support of 1.2 trillion Indian rupees ($12.6 billion) to oil refiners and retailers for not hiking pump prices for the first 78 days of the war despite a rise in global prices, the official said.
India, where farming is a mainstay, imports fertilisers such as urea and DAP, as well as liquefied natural gas, a key feedstock for urea production.
