Minister of State for Planning (IC) and Chemicals & Fertilizers, Shri Rao Inderjit Singh, in a written reply to a question on innovative solutions taken by the Government to cut urea consumption, in Lok Sabha today, informed that with the objective of encouraging balanced use of fertilizers, Department of Fertilizers has made it mandatory for all the domestic producers of urea to produce 100% as Neem Coated Urea (NCU). Entire quantity of both indigenously produced urea and imported urea is being neem coated w.e.f 1^st September, 2015 and 1^st December, 2015 respectively.

One of the primary benefits of Neem coating is the slow release of urea, which results in increased Nitrogen Use Efficiency (NUE). Due to NUE, the consumption of Neem Coated Urea reduces as compared to normal urea, the Minister added.

Shri Singh also informed that in the light of increased effectiveness of NCU, Government of India vide notification dated 4^th September, 2017, has decided to introduce 45 Kg bag of urea in place of existing 50 Kg bags and a period of six months have been given to urea units as lead time to ensure smooth implementation of the policy.

Further, the Minister stated that since farmers mostly assess the requirement of urea in terms of bags for agriculture purpose, it is estimated that the availability of urea in 45 Kg bags instead of 50 Kg bag may bring down consumption of Urea by 10%. The All India consumption of urea for the last 3 years is given below:

The Minister added that the import of urea is based on demand supply gap dynamics. The Government of India has allocated Rs. 14,000 Crore for Imported Urea in the Budgetary Estimates (BE) 2017-18.

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