Centre implements ‘One Nation One Fertiliser’ plan under ‘Bharat’ brand

To bring about uniformity in fertiliser brands across the country, the government today issued an order directing all companies to sell their products under a single brand name of ‘Bharat’.

Following the order, all fertiliser bags, whether containing urea or di-ammonium phosphate (DAP) or muriate of ootash (MOP) or NPK will sport the brand name as ‘Bharat Urea’, ‘Bharat DAP’, ‘Bharat MOP’ and ‘Bharat NPK’ irrespective of the company that manufacturers it, whether in the public or the private sector.

The order has drawn adverse reactions from fertiliser companies, claiming it will ‘kill their brand value and market differentiation’

The order also stated that the single brand name and the logo of Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janurvarak Pariyojana (PMBJP), the scheme under which the Central government grants subsidy annually to the fertiliser, companies will have to be displayed on the bags.

“The company name can be mentioned in a very small portion of the total packaging,” a senior industry official said.

He said the move could harm the fertiliser companies as brands apart from being product differentiator also helps in building an image of the firm while going into the farmers’ fields.

“Fertiliser companies do a lot of extension activities such as field-level demonstrations, crop surveys etc, where their brands are displayed prominently and it also helps in reaching out to the farmers. All this will now stop,” the official said.

The order, meanwhile, said that fertiliser companies will not be allowed to procure old designed bags from September 15 and the new system will come into place from October 2, 2022. The companies have been given time till December 12 to exhaust all their old designed bags from the market.

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