'Make most of fertilizer subsidy'

The government has requested all cultivators and land smallholders of the country to make direct contribution to the national production process making use of the advantages available as the government has extended the fertilizer subsidy so far granted to the paddy farmers to cover all cultivation crops with immediate effect.

The government had allocated a sum of Rs 20,000 million to provide paddy cultivators fertilizer subsidy. The government has also decided to grant a fertilizer subsidy of Rs 50,000 million for tea, rubber and coconut cultivators.

The opportunity to obtain fertilizer under the subsidy to all these crops has been made available for all cultivators through the open market. This will facilitate the cultivators as they need not go to government officials to produce various documents and get the work done.

Under the new programme a subsidy of 90 percent will be made available to paddy fertilizer while a subsidy of more than 65 percent is available for other varieties of fertilizer. A bag of fertilizer used for paddy weighing 50 kilograms is sold at Rs 350 from 2006.

A bag of other varieties of fertilizer is sold at Rs 1,200 for non-mixed 50 kilograms and at Rs 1,300 for mixed fertilizer. The real prize of there fertilizer is Rs 3,500 for a bag of 50 kilograms.