PALEMBANG - Deputy Minister of BUMN I Pahala Nugraha Mansury ensured that subsidized and non-subsidized fertilizers were available to meet the needs of the community. This was conveyed after he visited PT Pupuk Sriwidjaja (Pusri) Palembang on Monday (17/4/2023).

During a working visit to Palembang, South Sumatra, Pahala took the time to inspect the Line I Warehouse in the factory area of Pupuk Indonesia's subsidiary. "We from the Ministry of BUMN together with Pupuk Indonesia came to Pusri to be able to first see the readiness and availability of fertilizers in Pusri according to the President and Minister of BUMN Mr. Erick Thohir that we must ensure that both subsidized and non-subsidized fertilizers must really be prepared," said Pahala.

It was reported that the Line I Warehouse in the Pusri Palembang factory area provided about 4,000 tons of urea bags, then there were also around 32,000 tons of bulk Urea, and around 2,500 tons of NPK bags.” We see that this is our effort to ensure that subsidized and non-subsidized fertilizers are available to the community," he added.

Apart from ensuring the availability of subsidized and non-subsidized fertilizers, Pahala revealed that the Pupuk Indonesia Group has also implemented a digital system in the redemption process, one of which is using the REKAN application that has been implemented. This application, said Pahala, provides convenience and improves the management of subsidized fertilizers, which has been a concern of the government.

In order to support the availability of domestic fertilizer, Pahala said that Pupuk Indonesia also has several plans for developing factories in order to increase the production capacity of urea and NPK. The urea plant is planned to be built in Papua. Meanwhile, NPK plans to convert SP-26 into an NPK factory with a capacity of around 600,000 tons which is planned to operate in 2024. As well as construction of NPK factories in Pupuk Kujang Cikampek and Pupuk Kaltim with a capacity of around 100,000 tons each.

Not long ago, Pupuk Indonesia also added NPK capacity by operating the NPK Pupuk Iskandar Muda (PIM) factory with a capacity of 500,000 tons. In addition, PIM is also re-operating the PIM 1 plant with a capacity of 570 thousand tons of urea, as well as completing the PIM-2 plant which also has a capacity of 570 thousand tons of urea.

According to him, the availability of urea fertilizer is now able to meet national needs, while NPK still needs to be increased even though Pupuk Indonesia Group's production capacity has met the need for subsidized NPK.

Pupuk Indonesia has a fertilizer production capacity of 13.9 million tons, with details of 8.8 million tons of urea production, 3.8 million tons of NPK, and around 1.3 million tons of others. This production capacity has supported the availability of domestically subsidized fertilizers. The allocation for subsidized fertilizer is set at 7.8 million tons in 2023. With details of urea type fertilizer of 4.6 million tons and NPK of 3.2 million tons.

Based on the Regulation of the Minister of Agriculture (Permentan) Number 10 of 2022, the Government focuses fertilizer subsidies on two types, namely Urea and NPK. In this regulation, the criteria for farmers who are entitled to receive subsidy allocations are determined, namely that they must join farmer groups, be registered with the SIMLUHTAN (Agricultural Extension Management Information System), work on a maximum of two hectares of land. In addition, subsidized fertilizers are currently focused on 9 types of strategic commodities, namely rice, corn, soybeans, chilies, shallots, garlic, coffee, sugarcane and cocoa, from the previous target for around 72 commodities. That way, farmers who do not meet the criteria are not entitled to an allocation of fertilizer subsidies.

Pupuk Indonesia also has customer service that can be accessed by all farmers with a toll-free contact at 0800 100 8001 or WA 0811 9918 001. Through customer service, Pupuk Indonesia will accommodate complaints regarding subsidized fertilizers in terms of availability, price, and quality.