Question

Give an account of growth of the fertilizer industry in India.

Answer 1

• The fertilizer industry started modestly with the first super-phosphate factory set up at Ranipet in Tamil Nadu in 1906.
• Significant growth occurred post-Independence, marked by the establishment of the Sindri plant by the Fertilizer Corporation of India Ltd. (FCI) in 1951.
• The industry has since rapidly expanded into one of the fastest-growing basic industries in India.
• As of the recent years, India is the fourth largest producer of nitrogenous fertilizers globally.
• Fertilizer production increased from very low figures in the 1950s to 17,898 thousand tonnes of nutrients in 2016-17, with nitrogenous fertilizers showing better growth than phosphatic fertilizers (nitrogenous production was 13,331 thousand tonnes in 2016-17, while phosphatic was 4,567 thousand tonnes).
• Currently, there are 67 fertilizer units manufacturing a range of nitrogenous and complex fertilizers, and about 80 units producing single super-phosphate.