The Indian Farmers Fertilisers Cooperative Ltd (IFFCO) said Thursday that it has no plans to increase the maximum retail price (MRP) of it's di-ammonium phosphate and complex fertilisers containing nitrogen (N), phosphorous (P) and potash (K) till March next year.
This is after the company has managed to secure a 5 per cent discount from some of its global suppliers on existing contracts, said Managing Director, Dr U.S. Awasthi.
Hit by the weakening rupee, IFFCO had recently started renegotiating contracts with its global suppliers. “Some of them have agreed to a 5 per cent discount, while we are in talks with others,” Mr Awasthi said.
IFFCO has managed to get a discount of $35 a tonne for di-ammonium phosphate (DAP) and $25 a tonne for NPK fertilisers. The co-operative had contracted for total import of 1.5 million tonnes of DAP at $677 a tonne and NPK at $617 a tonne, Mr Awasthi said.
COSTLY IMPORTS
High global prices coupled with a weakening rupee have made fertiliser imports costlier in the past five to six months. The DAP prices, which ruled at Rs 11,000 a tonne at the beginning of kharif season in June have shot up 65 per cent to Rs 18,500 a tonne at present. The Government had de-controlled the prices of non-urea fertilisers such as DAP and NPK by introducing the Nutrient Based Subsidy (NBS) in March 2010. Since then, the prices of DAP have almost doubled from a level of Rs 9,350.