KARACHI, March 8: The fertiliser industry bears the burden of Rs41 billion of the total benefit of Rs55 billion provided to the farming community through lower domestic urea prices, a senior official of one of the major manufactures said.

He said that the industry was unceasingly being criticised for getting what has been termed as ‘huge subsidies’ on gas. There have been allegations that these were pocketed by the industry and the benefit was not passed on to the farming community.

The company official revealed that the total benefit through lower domestic urea prices to the farming community amounted to Rs55 billion.

Of this, the government gave a relief of about Rs14 billion through lower feed gas prices and subsidy on imported urea; while the major amount of Rs41 billion was provided by the fertiliser industry.

“The fertiliser manufacturers could have earned around Rs41 billion more if they sold urea at international prices even if they paid for all the gas consumed by them at fuel gas prices,” the company official observed.

“We have from time to time demonstrated that it is wrong to suggest that the beneficiary is the industry and the fact is that over a long period of 5 to 10 years all benefits received through lower feed gas prices have been passed on the farmers through lower domestic prices of urea,” the official claimed.

He added that in the last two to three years, the situation had more drastically changed and the fertiliser industry was not only fully passing on the gas subsidy but also providing a huge benefit to the farming community in the country.