Mounting a scathing attack on the proposed DBT in fertilizer being advocated by the Modi govt, NCUI President and KRIBHCO Chairman Dr Chandra Pal Singh Yadav said he finds such talks fanciful than real.
“You take it from me nothing of the sort is going to happen. And I am not saying so vis a vis this govt alone; several govts in the past also have toyed with the wooly idea with little results”, Yadav said with a touch of melancholy.
Even as subsidy arrears are running into crores, ferlitizer companies are being forced to take loan at high interest rates from the market to run the show but how long could they afford to do so is not hard to understand, Chandra Pal explained.
As of now, fertilizer companies have to borrow Rs 5000 to 7000 as loans and the annual interest alone on these loans works out to Rs 500 to 700 crore offsetting all profits thereby making a mockery of all business sense, Chandra Pal tore into the govt.
There will come a time when these factories will have to be closed down and the govt would be forced to import fertilizer at a higher rate than what they have to pay in subsidies now, he underlined.
IFFCO has subsidy arrears running into Rs 10000 crore and similarly Kribhco has this amount touching Rs 5000 crore. And see the duplicity of the govt it has only Rs 70000 crore subsidy provision for fertilizer in the budget while actually it runs a subsidy bill close to Rs 1.3 to 1.4 lakh crore every year.
Chandra Pal was speaking at the NAFSCOB function on Sunday aimed at strengthening the credit cooperative structure in the country. His response came after an utterance by Deputy MD of NABARD H R Dave in which he asked co-op banks to gird up loins and face the impending DBT.