Govt tightens fertiliser tracking, links farmer purchases to land records

New Delhi: The government on Sunday said it is broadening a nationwide digital platform that tracks fertilizer from production to retail sale, adding tools to link purchases with individual farmers' land records and to monitor subsidy payments more closely.

The Integrated Fertilizer Management System (iFMS), run by the Department of Fertilizers with technical support from the National Informatics Centre, already tracks more than 14 crore Aadhaar-linked buyers and over 2,50,000 retailers, and processes about 70 million tonnes of fertilizer sales a year. The system underpins roughly Rs 2 lakh crore in annual fertilizer subsidies.

The department has been developing new dashboards that give officials a consolidated view of production, imports, dispatches, stocks and retail sales at the national, state, district and retailer level, aimed at flagging unusual trends or supply shortfalls earlier, an official statement said.

LINKING FARMERS TO PURCHASES

The Department has also worked to integrate iFMS with farmer, land and crop databases. A pilot integration with Haryana's Meri Fasal Mera Byora programme, followed by efforts to connect with the federal AgriStack initiative, tested methods for matching fertilizer buyers with land records ' work that exposed gaps in the completeness of existing land and crop data.

Building on that work, the department has rolled out a Framework for Fertilizer Sale that links a mobile booking app to the existing point-of-sale network. Under the framework, farmers book fertilizer using an AgriStack-based ID after their land and ownership details are verified, generating a QR code that retailers scan to compare requested and purchased quantities.

The framework is being introduced in phases, with the department and participating states studying booking behaviour and consumption patterns before wider rollout. Officials say the data will allow analysis of fertilizer use per hectare, by landholding size, crop and product, and of gaps between what farmers say they need and what they buy.

TRACKING SHIPMENTS AND SUBSIDY PAYMENTS

The department has also introduced a Vehicle Location Tracking System that links dispatch records to real-time vehicle location data, allowing officials to monitor shipments in transit and identify delays, in addition to existing tools that track goods in transit and stock levels.

On the financial side, the department said on January 1, 2026, it advanced work on electronic processing of subsidy bills, integrating the system with government financial platforms including PFMS and e-Bill processes.

Officials said the change would cut manual handling and improve traceability, while random verification checks would be added to scrutinise subsidy-linked transactions.

The department described the changes as part of a broader shift from a system that mainly recorded transactions to one intended to show where fertilizer is available, how it is moving, who is buying it and how usage compares with farmers' actual requirements.