PM PRANAM is a programme that the Union Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers plans to introduce.

PM PRANAM, short for PM Promotion of Alternate Nutrients for Agriculture Management Yojana, is a government initiative.

The suggested plan intends to lessen state reliance on chemical fertilisers and the cost of chemical fertiliser subsidies.

At the most recent National Conference on Agriculture for Rabi Campaign, the federal government presented the PM-PRANAM proposal to state government representatives.

This plan's draught has not yet been completed.

Officials claim that the programme won't have a separate budget and will instead be supported by savings from current fertiliser subsidies under programmes managed by the Department of Fertilizers.

The state that receives the subsidy savings as a grant will receive 50% of them.

At the village block and district levels, assets related to the technological adoption of alternative fertilisers and alternative fertiliser production units may be created using up to 70% of the funding allocated under the scheme.

Farmers, panchayats, farmer producer organisations, and self-help groups engaged in fertiliser reduction and awareness raising can be rewarded and encouraged with the remaining 30% of the award money.

A state's growth or decrease in urea consumption in a given year will be compared to its average urea consumption over the preceding three years to demonstrate the calculation in lowering the use of chemical fertilisers.

For this, information from the dashboard for the Fertilizer Ministry's iFMS (Integrated Fertilizers Management System) will be used.

The action is in line with the government's recent push to encourage the balanced use of fertilisers or alternative fertilisers.

Organic and inorganic fertilisers are substances that supply one or more of the chemicals necessary for plant growth.

According to professionals in the field, of the 16 components required for plant growth, nine (major elements) are needed in significant quantities, while the other seven are only needed occasionally (minor elements).

The principal plant nutrients are nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Secondary nutrients are calcium, magnesium, and sulphur. Trace elements or micronutrients are iron, manganese, copper, zinc, boron, molybdenum, and chlorine.

Major elements are the first and second nutrition elements.

India's fertiliser business is largely responsible for the agricultural sector's prosperity.

It gains relevance in light of the country's overall fertiliser requirement having sharply increased during the previous five years.

The country's total demand for the four most commonly used chemical fertilizers—urea, DAP (di-ammonium phosphate), MOP (muriate of potash), and NPKS (nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium)—will increase by 21% in 2021–2022 compared to 2017–18, according to the Union Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers.

The DAP requirement has experienced the most growth.

MRPs (maximum retail prices), which are lower than the cost of production or importation of fertilisers, are what farmers pay for them.

In the case of neem-coated urea, for instance, the government fixed the MRP at Rs 5,922.22 per tonne (in 2020), but the average cost-plus price paid to domestic producers and imports is roughly Rs 17,000 and Rs 23,000 per tonne, respectively.

Because the MRPs for non-urea fertilisers (such as DAP, MOP, etc.) are decontrolled or established by the firms.

The government provides a flat per-tonne subsidy to guarantee that the cost of these nutrients is set at "acceptable levels."

The farmer, who pays MRPs that are less than market-determined prices, is the ultimate recipient of the subsidy, which is provided to fertiliser firms.

The subsidy burden for chemical fertilisers is anticipated to increase by 39% to Rs 2.25 lakh crore in 2022–23 (from Rs 1.62 lakh crore last year).

In 2018, the Center put into effect a direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme for fertilisers.

According to this scheme, fertiliser firms receive a 100% subsidy on a variety of fertiliser grades based on the actual sales that the merchants make to the recipients.

The Department of Fertilizers' e-Urvarak DBT portal is now connected to every retailer (more than 2.3 lakh in India), and every one of these machines is a point-of-sale (PoS) device.

A corporation cannot collect a subsidy until the sale has been registered on the e-Urvarak portal.

The Fertilizer Control Order-1985 was also updated by the government to include modern nutrients such Nano urea and bio-stimulants.

Additionally, programmes like the Soil Health Card and neem-coated urea have been put into practise.

Source: The Indian Express