The term PM-PRANAM was recently in the news as the union government announced to launch the visionary scheme soon, in order to reduce the use of chemical fertilizers by incentivizing states. The acronym PM PRANAM stands for PM Promotion of Alternate Nutrients for Agriculture Management Yojana. The scheme intends to reduce the subsidy burden on chemical fertilizers, which is expected to increase to ₹ 2.25 lakh crore in 2022-23, which is 39% higher than the previous year’s figure of ₹1.62 lakh crore.
The aim behind launching such a scheme:
Apart from lowering down the subsidy burden on chemical fertilizers, the Government aims to encourage the balanced use of fertilizers along with biofertilizers and organic fertilizers
Features of the scheme:
The scheme will not have any specific or separate budget to run its initiative and will be financed through the savings of existing fertilizer subsidies under schemes run by the Department of fertilizers. The data available on the fertilizer Ministry dashboard, iFMS(integrated fertilizers management system) will be used for this purpose.
Need for such scheme:
If we consider it the other way, the world witnessed the Ukraine-Russia tussle recently which has put India in jeopardy during the Kharif season as India imports the majority of its fertilizers from Russia. It’s high time we must switch to alternatives of chemical fertilizers to avoid such unintended consequences in the future. Chemical fertilizers not only cost heavily to the pocket of the exchequer but degrade the quality of soil as well. Thus, PM PRANAM can create a win-win situation for Indian agriculture, and Indian farmers and would reduce the government’s burden as well.
Steps already taken by Government in this direction
Zero-budget natural farming, organic farming, urea policy, neem-coated urea, etc. has been taken up to reduce and nullify the ill effects of chemical fertilizers on Indian soil, and PM – PRANAM scheme would definitely prove out to be an add-on to it if rolled out in time and executed judiciously.
