Promotion of Alternate Nutrients for Agriculture Management Yojana (PRANAM)
Source: Indian Express
GS II: Policies and Developmental Studies; GS III: Food and Agriculture
What is discussed under the Promotion of Alternate Nutrients for Agriculture Management Yojana (PRANAM)?
- What is the PM PRANAM scheme?
- What is the Need for This Scheme?
- Current Status of the Scheme
Why in News?
- The PM PRANAM plan is approved by the government to reduce the usage of chemical fertilisers.
- PM Promotion of Alternate Nutrients for Agriculture Management Yojana also attempts to reduce the financial burden of subsidies for chemical fertilisers.
What is the PM PRANAM scheme?
- The government intends to introduce the PM PRANAM scheme, which will pay half of the subsidy savings to the state that saves them money, in response to the high rise in overall fertiliser use over the past five years.
Image by prostooleh on Freepik - The state must use 70% of this to build the infrastructure necessary for the adoption of alternate fertilisers and alternate fertiliser-producing facilities at the district, block, and village levels.
- The states can utilise the remaining 30% to reward and encourage farmers, panchayats, farmer producer organisations, and self-help groups active in raising awareness and assisting to reduce the use of fertiliser.
- The state’s use of chemical fertilisers in a given year will be compared to its average use over the previous three years by government.
- To compare the data, the government will use the iFMS dashboard for the fertilisers ministry.
- The PM PRANAM plan won’t have a distinct budget.
- The “savings of existing fertiliser subsidies” provided by the department of fertilisers under various programmes would be used to pay for it.
What is the Need for This Scheme?
- The government intends to implement the PM PRANAM scheme to encourage the balanced use of fertilisers or alternative fertilisers.
- To protect farmers from excessive costs brought on by the surge in fertiliser prices globally, the government offers subsidies.
- IN 2020-2023, there will be an additional fertiliser subsidy of Rs. 1.10 lakh crore.
Current Status of the Scheme
- The PM-PRANAM scheme was proposed by the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers.
- Its top representatives reviewed the specifics with state government representatives on September 7 at the National Conference on Agriculture for Rabi Campaign.
- The Center has asked the states for input on the characteristics of the proposed system.
- The ministry has also started interministerial conversations about the suggested plan at the same time.
- The PM PRANAM scheme draught will be finalised after taking into account the opinions of all relevant departments.
Government initiatives to reduce the usage of chemical fertilisers
- In 2018, the Center put into effect a direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme for fertilisers.
- According to this method, fertiliser firms receive a 100% subsidy on a range of fertiliser grades based on the actual sales that 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 as Nano urea and bio-stimulants.
- Additionally, programmes like the Soil Health Card and neem-coated urea have been put into practice.
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