Faced with a mounting fertiliser subsidy bill, the Centre, on Wednesday, decided to issue bonds to manufacturers for the first time to the tune of Rs 6,000 crore for meeting its commitments.
“While agreeing to release Rs 15,000 crore fertiliser subsidy as part of the subsidy payment soon, it has been decided that while Rs 9,000 crore will be in cash, the rest Rs 6,000 crore would be in the form of bonds,” an official sources told PTI.
The decision was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh which sat to review issues pertaining to availability of funds for fertiliser subsidy.
Subsidy bill
Although Fertiliser Ministry demanded Rs 17,223 crore as subsidy to be included in the first supplementary demand for grants to be tabled in the monsoon session of Parliament, the government agreed to provide Rs 15,000 crore, they said.
A sum of Rs 8,305 crore fertiliser subsidy bill is expected to be taken in the second supplementary demand for grants to be introduced either in the winter session or next year’s first part of budget session, they added.
