India imported 756 LMT fertilisers in 4 years: Centre

Neeraj Mohan

New Delhi, December 23

To address the growing gap between demand and production, India has imported a substantial 756.36 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) of fertilisers over the past four years.

The country’’s overall production of four main fertilisers including urea, DAP (diammonium phosphate) and NPKS (nitrogen, phosphorus, potash or potassium and sulphur) has reached 428.84 lakh MT in 2022-23 from 384.33 LMT in 2020-21. But it is insufficient to meet the demand which has reached 628.25 LMT from 581.05 LMT during this period, forcing the country to import around 190 LMT of fertilisers annually. Consequently, 32 per cent of the total required fertilisers had to be imported to meet the shortfall. Still, there was a gap of around 115.92 LMT against the demand despite the imports of 756.36 LMT and domestic production of 1,579.02 LMT.

The figures of the Union Ministry revealed that the overall consumption of key fertilisers, especially urea, is on the rise. It has reached 359.19 LMT in 2022-23 from 356.53 LMT in 2021-22. The consumption of DAP has risen to 114.2 LMT against 103.30 LMT in 2019-20 and that of NPKS 120.69 LMT in 2022-23 from 104.82 LMT in 2019-20.