The rich-poor debate, with a difference

The ministry of chemicals and fertiliser is contemplating an increase in urea prices by 10%. If the price of urea actually goes up, the price per tonne will increase from R5,310 to R5,841, resulting in a reduction in the fertiliser subsidy bill by R2,000 crore. Although marginal, this is a right move towards the rationalisation of urea prices, a politically sensitive economic decision, which the governments in the past 10 years had the courage to take only once, and that too in 2010, when it increased the price of urea from R4,830 crore to R5,310 crore.

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