Shares of fertiliser companies, which rallied by up to six per cent in the morning trade, gave up most of their gains as the Government deferred the Fertiliser Ministry’s proposal to hike the retail prices of urea by 10 per cent for 2012-13 fiscal.
National Fertilisers, which gained nearly six per cent in the morning session, pared most of the gains and was trading 0.67 per cent up at Rs 83.20 on the BSE in the afternoon trade.
Rashtriya Chemicals & Fertilizers also trimmed its initial gains and was quoting 0.60 per cent higher, while Coromandel International was trading up 0.42 per cent.
Among others, Chambal Fertilisers & Chemicals slipped 0.59 per cent after gaining over 4 per cent in the morning trade.
The Government has deferred the Fertiliser Ministry’s proposal to hike the retail prices of urea by 10 per cent to Rs 5,841 per tonne for the 2012-13 fiscal.
Urea is the only fertiliser that remains under full price control. Its current retail price is Rs 5,310 per tonne.
The proposal to hike urea prices was made to redress the imbalanced use of soil nutrient and reduce the subsidy burden of the government.
Meanwhile, the BSE benchmark Sensex was trading 78.83 points lower at 16,801.68 in the afternoon trade.