Kribhco's profit declined 15 percent to Rs 162.56 crore due to higher finance cost

Fertiliser co-operative Kribhco's profit before tax declined 15 percent to Rs 162.56 crore last fiscal due to higher finance cost but declared a higher dividend of 18 percent for the members.

Its profit before tax stood at Rs 190.60 crore in the 2016-17 fiscal and had declared 15 percent dividend.

Krishak Bharati Co-operative Ltd (Kribhco) has a total membership of 9,467 co-operative societies and paid up share capital of the society was Rs 389.73 crore as on March 31, 2018, its Chairman Chandra Pal Singh said Thursday.

"The financial year 2017-18 was yet another challenging year witnessed by the fertilizer industry," he said while addressing the 38th annual general meeting (AGM).

The government changed the procedure for disbursement of subsidy on receipt of fertilizers in the district basis to the sale of nutrients to the farmers through the point of sale (PoS) machine, he said.

"The entire fertilizer industry faced immense difficulties in generating direct benefit transfer (DBT) bills due to systemic issues. As a result, a huge amount of subsidy bills could not be generated by the fertilizer companies by the year-end and a meager amount of subsidy payment was released by the government," Singh explained.

The delayed payment of subsidy affected the profitability of KRIBHCO during the year, the Chairman said.

"...even in these difficult conditions, the board of directors of the society has recommended 18 percent dividend on the paid up share capital," Singh said.

Kribhco's MD N Sambasiva Rao said the co-operative produced 22.54 lakh tonnes of urea, 13.26 lakh tonnes of ammonia, 5.14 lakh liter of bio-fertilizer and 3.69 lakh quintal of certified seeds.

Asked about the pending subsidy with the government, Rao said it is about Rs 1,500 crore.

At present, Kribhco has one urea plant in Hazira in Gujarat having an annual capacity of 22 lakh tonnes.

Besides, the cooperative has one plant in Shajhanpur in Uttar Pradesh in partnership with Shyam group having a capacity of 10 lakh tonnes and one plant in Oman in partnership with Iffco.