The current government is passing through crucial and tough time, throughout the week we come across plenty of negative news. After week full of economic pressure, government takes one positive step and that renders as a relief for the industry and the common man gets hopeful. After a day or two, another news bursts common man’s bubble. This is what is happening with subsidized production cost for urea plants. Government in one of the ECC meetings, decided to give away subsidy on gas charges which is given to industry as a mix of system gas and RLNG both. In the hope of having a subsidized rate, industry started its operations. Despite of the promises, the setups were given gas at an inflated rate. Further devaluation and repricing in the tariff added further cost, reacting to which major urea producers have halted its production.
It is pertinent to mention here that imported urea costs far more than the subsidy being given or was previously promised. Even if they keep their promise, the urea production in house shall be cheaper than the imported urea’s cost. When we talk about innovative solutions, we don’t mean that government may announce anything that it can’t keep up with. In this particular case, government needs to stick to its promise because ignoring farmer or agriculture would be another blow to the economy.
In addition to this, government also needs to discuss the progress of zero-rated industries as it has promised to deliver RLNG on subsidized rates too. The credit goes to APTMA to have their demands met but government needs to check with the industry if they are doing fine and would they be able to add to the revenue in the long run. At present, government primarily needs to adhere to the policies and promises it makes, plus the outcome of these promises must be gauged too. Otherwise, it would go as random effort which shall remain unaccounted and one year later, either government or industrialists shall come up with an excuse or a blame that would be disastrous for the economy.
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