Rajya Sabha clears additional allocation for fertilizer subsidy

The Rajya Sabha, on Tuesday (December 16, 2025), cleared the first batch of Supplementary Demands for Grants that authorises the Union Government to additionally spend ₹41,455 crore in 2025-26. This includes over ₹18,000 crore towards fertilizer subsidy. The gross additional expenditure in the Supplementary Demands for Grants is ₹1.32 lakh crore, in which ₹90,812.17 crore is savings by various Ministries and departments.

Apart from allocation to meet fertilizer subsidy, the Supplementary Demands for Grants also has allocation of ₹9,500 crore to the Petroleum Ministry to compensate oil marketing companies for under-recoveries and ₹1,304 crore for additional expenditure by the Department of Higher Education.

Replying to a brief debate on the matter, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said the expenses for fertilizers, and the use of fertilizers, particularly of urea, has increased. There is no shortage of fertilizers in the country. He added that urea production had also increased in the country. “Every month, the production of urea is being ramped up by around one lakh tonne per month,” he said.

Maintaining that the Union Government is focused on fiscal consolidation, he said that in 2020-21, the fiscal deficit stood at 9.2%, while in 2025-26 fiscal, the target is just 4.4%. He said allocations to the States have also increased during the Narendra Modi regime.

During the debate, the Opposition MPs alleged that the Centre had been reducing the allocations to the States and discriminating against Opposition-ruled States. G.C. Chandrashekhar of the Congress said there was an extra allocation of ₹ 1.32 lakh crore, but the Centre’s popular programmes could not be implemented fully by the States due to non-release of funds.

Aam Aadmi Party member Raghav Chadha demanded “Tokenisation Bill” to enable fractionalised ownership of assets through digital tokens. “Asset tokenisation is one of the most transformative technological financial innovations of the 21st century, and through it, real estate and infra projects, and commodities, among others, will be divided into small pieces of digital tokens. This tradeable token can be used by anyone for buying or selling and make profits [out of it]… This means that these big assets will not only be available for billionaires but for the common man of the country who can buy big assets and taste big returns,” he said.