The production of nitrogenous fertilisers increased to 23.05 lakh tonnes against 22.24 lakh tonnes during the first quarter of the previous year. On the other hand, phosphatic fertiliser output declined to 6.41 lakh tonnes from 7.16 lakh tonnes.

Entire increase in nitrogen production came from straight fertilisers, especially urea while complex fertilisers witnessed a fall. In terms of individual fertilisers, urea production represented an increase of 2.21 lakh tonnes at 43.21 lakh tonnes.

Ammonium sulphate and Calcium Ammonium Nitrate (CAN) also recorded small increases of about 20,000 and 7,000 tonnes respectively. On the other hand, most of the complex fertilisers registered decline except 12,000 tonnes increase in APS (20-20-0) and 1.10 lakh tonne increase in NPK17-17-17.

Among complex fertilisers, largest decline was noticed in DAP which accounted for a reduction of about 98,000 tonnes during the period. As against the target, shortfall in nitrogenous and phosphatic fertilisers production was of the order of 82,000 and 79,000 respectively.The capacity utilisation of these fertilisers went down significantly to 88 and 81 per cent respectively from 91 per cent and 93 per cent respectively.

Production of total nutrients recorded marginal increase from 10.24 lakh tonnes during June 97 to 10.31 lakh tonnes during June 98. While nitrogenous fertiliser production registered five per cent increase from 7.78 lakh tonnes to 8.17 lakh tonnes, production of phosphatic fertilisers recorded a significant fall of 13 per cent from 2.46 lakh tonnes to 2.13 lakh tonnes.Among nitrogenous fertilisers, highest increase was achieved by urea while lowest production was recorded in Single Super Phosphate SSP as well as complex fertilisers among phosphatic family.

Production of ureaincreased by 0.87 lakh tonnes to 15.34 lakh tonnes from 14.47 lakh tonnes whereas production of DAP (diammonium phosphate) declined by about 0.26 lakh tonnes at 2.86 lakh tonnes from 3.12 lakh tonnes.

Likewise production of ammonium sulphate and CAN also recorded small increase during the period.According to industry sources, the production fell because of announcement of increase in subsidy by Rs 500 per tonne as the industry has decided to commence major sales operations from the oncoming rabi season.

This is so because the manufacturers do not want to pile up stocks till then as they expect the government to lift the price ceiling and allow manufacturers to decide the price.

In the light of this expectation the prices of DAP are likely to increase by Rs 1000-1200 per tonne which would increase the profitability of the manufacturers.

Production of phosphatic fertilisers have also fallen short of the target by 0.37 lakh tonnes as against a production shortfall of 0.44 lakh tonnes in case ofnitrogenous fertilisers.

Consequently, capacity utilisation of both these fertilisers have declined to 81 per cent and 95 per cent respectively as against 93 percent and 97 per cent respectively in June 97.