Govt plans urea imports to ensure price stability

Amid continuously rising domestic prices, the government on Thursday decided to import at least 200,000 tonnes of urea to meet ongoing kharif requirements. Subject to the proverbial endorsement by the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet in its upcoming meeting, a decision to import urea was taken at a meeting of the Fertiliser Review Committee (FRC) presided over by Minister for Industries and Production Rana Tanveer Hussain. In recent days, the local producers have increased the urea prices, one after the other, by Rs500 to Rs700 per 50kg bag during the current month alone without any noticeable movement in input costs amid estimates that urea consumption could be 18-20pc higher this season. The relevant authorities are already reported to have sought explanations from the urea producers, who have also been holding back hundreds of billions of rupees collected from consumers on account of Gas Infrastructure Development Cess (GIDC) for more than a decade.