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Fertiliser industry has made a tremendous progress after independence. The first fertiliser plant was established in India in 1906. The five decades of planning and development of fertiliser industry have brought India to the frontline of fertiliser producing countries. India today is the third largest producer of nitrogenous fertilisers in the world after China and USA. The domestic production of urea in the year 2010-2011 was about 164 lakh tonnes which is 8.5% of the urea requirement of the country, while the per hectare consumption was about 129 kg. per hectare.
The public sector has been playing a dominant role in the fertiliser industry. The first state-owned fertiliser unit was set up in 1951 at Sindri in Bihar (Jharkhand) which was followed by another plant at Nangal in Punjab. At present, there are, 57 fertiliser units manufacturing a wide range of nitrogenous and complex fertilisers, 29 units producing urea, and 9 units producing ammonium sulphate as a by-product. Besides there are 68 medium and small scale units in operation producing single superphosphate.
For a fertiliser industry, the basic raw materials are neptha, rock-phosphate, sulphur gypsum, and smelter gases. In case gas is not available, the plant may be operated with the help of coke and coke-oven-gas. In India, we have coal based fertiliser plants at Bhilai and Korba (Chhattisgarh), Durgapur (West Bengal), Ramgundam (Andhra Pradesh), Jamshedpur and Sindri (Jharkhand), and Rourkela and Talcher (Odisha). Neyveli is based on lignite while Ilazira (Gujarat) and Thal (Maharashtra) use natural gas from the Bombay High. Most of the fertiliser plants are located close to the petroleum refineries. Plants near sea are based on imported material. Some of the fertiliser plants have, however, been located near the consumer centres. The maximum number of fertiliser plants are in the state of Gujarat and Tamil Nadu (Fig. 11.14).