Centre to Spend Over Rs 2.5 lakh cr This Year to Make Fertilisers Available to Farmers at Affordable Prices

According to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Central government has spent over Rs 10 lakh crore over the past eight years to ensure that farmers in the nation are not burdened by the high global fertilizer costs.

At Ramagundam in Telangana, where he laid the first stones for numerous projects totaling more than Rs 9,500 crore and dedicated them to the nation, Modi said the Union government would spend more than Rs 2.5 lakh crore this year to make fertilizers accessible to farmers at reasonable prices.

He added that the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi program has seen more than Rs 2 lakh crore sent to farmers' bank accounts.

In order to achieve "Atma nirbharta" (self-reliance in urea), the PM said that five significant fertilizer facilities in the nation that had been idle for years are now being revived. The Ramagundam facility has been dedicated to the country, while the Gorakhpur plant in Uttar Pradesh has begun its production. When these five plants are completely operational, the nation would receive 60 lakh tonnes of urea, which will result in significant cost savings on imports and make urea more readily available, the official added.

A single brand of urea will be offered going forward under the name "Bharat Urea," according to Modi, who announced in response to the issues farmers had in the past as a result of the proliferation of fertilizer brands.

Even under these grave conditions, experts agree that India would soon overtake China as the third-largest economy in the world, and it is already moving in that direction.

Modi said there has been a change in governance, way of thinking, and strategy during the last eight years. Infrastructure improvements, improvements in governmental procedures, and ease of doing business are all motivating India's "aspirational society."

He added that the Center has not received any proposal to privatize the state-owned mining company Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) in Telangana, despite claims to the contrary. He asserted that the Union government has no such intentions.

PM said the Centre only owns a 49 percent stake in SCCL, while the Telangana government owns 51%. The Center is unable to make any decisions about its privatization.

Since the state's government-owned coal mining company employs thousands of workers, Telangana's privatization of Singareni Collieries is a major concern.

About 200 members of various political parties, including K Sambasiva Rao, the state secretary of the CPI in Telangana, were detained earlier in the day as part of precautionary steps, according to the police.