India’s Nano Urea To Save Rs 40000 Crore

Table of Contents

What has happened?

India will not need to import urea by 2025-end as the domestic production of conventional urea and nano liquid urea is expected to be sufficient to meet the country’s annual demand, Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers Mansukh Mandaviya said on Tuesday.
At present, the country’s urea (conventional) production is 260 lakh tonnes, while around 90 lakh tonnes are imported to meet local demand.
The government is expected to save foreign exchange worth Rs 40,000 crore per annum by shifting to nano urea liquid,
Which will boost crop production and increase farmers’ income, government officials told.

But what exactly is Nano urea?

It is essentially urea in the form of a nanoparticle.
Urea is a chemical nitrogen fertiliser, white in colour, which artificially provides nitrogen, a major nutrient required by plants.
The product has been developed at IFFCO’s Nano Biotechnology Research Centre (NBRC) at Kalol.
Apart from reducing the country’s subsidy bill, it is aimed at reducing the unbalanced and indiscriminate use of conventional urea, increase crop productivity, and reduce soil, water, and air pollution.
While conventional urea has an efficiency of about 25%, the efficiency of liquid nano urea can be as high as 85-90%.
Conventional urea fails to have the desired impact on crops as it is often applied incorrectly, and the nitrogen in it is vaporised or lost as gas.
A lot of nitrogen is also washed away during irrigation.
Liquid nano urea is sprayed directly on the leaves and gets absorbed by the plant.
Fertilisers in nano form provide a targeted supply of nutrients to crops, as they are absorbed by the stomata, pores found on the epidermis of leaves, officials said.
IFFCO advises that 2-4 ml of nano urea should be mixed a litre of water and sprayed on crop leaves at active growth stages.
Liquid nano urea has a shelf life of a year, and farmers need not be worried about “caking” when it comes in contact with moisture.
IFFCO says the product has been tested on more than 90 crops across 11,000 locations in collaboration with Krishi Vigyan Kendras of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR-KVKs), research institutes, state agriculture universities, and progressive farmers.
“The trials began in November 2019 and was meant to test the product on the farm under different climatic and soil conditions,” Jaiswal said.

result

Nano urea liquid has increased crop yield by 8% versus regular urea.
It has been found to be very effective in increasing the nutritional quality and productivity of crops, according to officials.

First nano urea plant

IFFCO commissioned the Kalol liquid nano urea plant, the country’s first, in August 2021.
Over 3.6 crore bottles of this urea have been produced, of which 2.5 crore have been sold.

Future plans

By 2025, through eight urea plants, India will produce 44 crore nano urea bottles per annum, which will be equivalent to 200 lakh million tonnes (MT) of conventional urea, and this will make New Delhi self-reliant.
IFFCO is setting up additional facilities for production of nano fertilisers at Aonla, Phulpur, Bengaluru, Paradeep, Kandla, Deoghar and Guwahati, besides expanding the Kalol plant, for the production of nano urea, nano DAP and nano micronutrients.
For this fiscal, India’s total fertiliser subsidy bill is likely to touch Rs 2.5 lakh crore and the urea subsidy bill is expected to be Rs 70,000 crore, officials said.
Coming to rabi crop demand, India needs to import 50 lakh MT of DAP (diammonium phosphate) fertiliser.

Q) Which state in India has the biggest consumption of fertilizer (in Kg Per Hectare)?