Editorial 1: An Atmanirbhar move: Focus on self-reliance in fertilisers has helped tide over a difficult period
Context:
- “When the world is in crisis, we must pledge — a pledge that is greater than the crisis itself. We must endeavour to make the 21st century, India’s century and the path to achieving this is self-reliance.
- The above statement of Indian prime minister Modi reflects the vision of India for Atmanirbhar.
- India’s exceptional management of the Covid19 crisis and the ensuing challenges conveyed the message to concentrate, recalibrate, and advance without excessive indulgence and shows plan for a self-reliant India, Atmanirbhar Bharat.
Types of the fertiliser subsidies provided by the Central government:
1. Nutrient based subsidy (NBS) policy for decontrolled Phosphatic & potassic fertilizers:
- Under the NBS policy, a fixed rate of subsidy (in ₹per Kg basis) is announced on nutrients namely Nitrogen (N), Phosphate (P), Potash (K) and Sulphur (S) by the government on annual basis.
- The per kilogram subsidy rates on the nutrients are converted into per tonne subsidy on the various P&K fertilisers covered under the policy.
- Any variant of the fertilizers covered under the subsidy scheme with micronutrients namely Boron and Zinc, is eligible for a separate per tonne subsidy to encourage their application along with primary nutrients.
- At present 22 grades of P&K fertilizers namely DAP, MAP, TSP, MOP, Ammonium Sulphate, SSP and 16 grades of NPKS complex fertilizers are covered under the NBS Policy.
- Under the NBS regime, MRP of P&K fertilizers has been left open and fertilizer manufacturers/marketers are allowed to fix the MRP at reasonable rates
2. Urea Policy (Pricing and Administration):
- The MRP of urea is statutorily fixed by the Government of India
Urea Policy(Pricing and Administration)
- Under the Central Sector Scheme, Urea is being provided to farmers at a statutory notified Maximum Retail Price (MRP) by the government.
- As, Government of India has notified fertilizer as an essential commodity under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955(ECA) and notified Fertilizer (Control) Order (FCO), 1985 & Fertilizer (Movement Control) Order, 1973 under the EC Act.
3. Vocal for Local initiative of India in Fertiliser sector
- Vocal for Local initiative is not just about import substitution; it is about creating a self-sustaining and self-generating economy.
- India’s department of fertilisers has made significant strides in achieving self-reliance in the sector.
- The government has shown foresightedness in securing fertiliser supplies during the crisis precipitated by the Russia-Ukraine war
- Despite facing challenges such as scarcity of raw materials, gas, oil, rock phosphate and potash, the government has forged long-term agreements and created joint ventures with resource-rich nations.
- It is supporting industry in identifying opportunities across the value chain by strengthening domestic operations, building long-term partnerships, investing in resource-rich geographies for securing raw materials and promoting alternate fertilisers and natural farming
4. Promotion of join venture to secure raw material for fertiliser
- Industry has been encouraged by government to set up overseas joint ventures to secure raw materials.
- Joint venture plants have been set up in some countries with buy-back agreements and assured off-take agreements for the supply of 10 LMT of rock phosphate and 6.55 LMT of phosphoric acid.
- As a result of strategic partnerships with countries such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, , Russia, Morocco, Israel and South Africa, India has secured a supply of 157 LMT (lakh metric tonnes) of various fertilisers for three years and 32 LMT for four years.
- The government has also encouraged the domestic industry and public sector undertakings to sign long-term agreements for the import of raw materials/intermediates such as ammonia, phosphoric acid, and sulphur.
- These initiatives have enabled India to diversify its product portfolio and produce more NPK complexes, which offer not only a wider range of products to farmers but also ensure balanced nutrition.
Conclusion:
- The Department of Fertilisers has positioned India as a key player in the global fertiliser supply chain.
- India’s bold move towards self-reliance in fertiliser is a testament to the government’s commitment to ensuring food security for its citizens and fulfilling PM Modi’s vision of an Atmanirbhar Bharat.
Editorial 2: CoWIN data ‘leak’: Why the govt statement raises more questions
Recent context:
- Following reports that CoWIN data had been accessed by a Telegram bot, the Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), the nodal cyber security agency, had reviewed the alleged breach and has found that the CoWIN portal was not “directly breached”.
- Minister said that The data including citizens’ Aadhaar and passport numbers that an automated account on Telegram was allegedly sharing was done using previously breached databases.
The central government response:
- The Ministry of Health press release first lays out the three ways in which data on CoWIN can be accessed:
- a user can access their data on the portal through a one time password (OTP) sent to their mobile number
- a vaccinator can access data of a person, and the CoWIN system tracks and records each time an “authorised” user accesses the system, and
- third party applications that have been provided authorised access of CoWIN APIs can access personal level data of vaccinated people after OTP authentication.
- Then it claims that without an OTP, data can not be shared with the Telegram bot. Some reports said that the bot also showed people’s date of birth, but the Ministry said that CoWIN only collects their year of birth and that there is no provision to capture a person’s address on CoWIN.
- Government said that CERT-In had reviewed the alleged breach, and the data being accessed by the Telegram bot was from a “threat actor database”. the database “seems to have been populated with previously breached data”, which was not related to CoWIN.
- It does not appear that the CoWIN app or database has been directly breached,” Chandrasekhar added.
But was there a breach?
- The Ministry has not explicitly clarified whether or not the CoWIN database was breached recently or in the past.
- Its entire explanation hinges on the fact that the only way to access CoWIN’s system is either through an OTP or through a vaccinator whose access is logged.
- While the Ministry said that it has adequate security measures to protect CoWIN’s database, at no point has it said the database itself has not been impacted.
- This only leaves the possibility that the Telegram bot was not scraping data from CoWIN in real time
- The Ministry’s statement also does not offer any insight against the assertions that the Telegram bot was able to accurately retrieve citizens’ data linked to a particular phone number, and why the details offered by the bot were specific to the CoWIN database, including place of vaccination, ID used etc.
- Besides, the Ministry is yet to receive a final report on the incident from CERT-In on the issue. As such, it would be premature to disprove a breach until CERT-In explicitly states that in its report.
- If one were to go by the government’s second reasoning that the database which the Telegram bot was using was prepared with information leaked in previous breaches, that too, raises some concerns.
Conclusion:
- The Health Ministry has asked CERT-In to look into this issue and submit a final report.
- Government also said that National Data Governance policy has been finalised that will create a common framework of data storage, access and security standards across all of the government