New Delhi, May 21 (IANS) The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on Thursday called for a coordinated national response to tackle a ‘3Fs’ challenge of fuel, fertiliser and food amid the West Asian crisis, causing price rise in these sectors.

CII said the three pressures from fuel, fertiliser and food are interlinked and must be treated as a single, integrated economic challenge.

“Fuel feeds into fertiliser, fertiliser feeds into food, and all three feed into inflation, fiscal stress, and household welfare,” said Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII.

The industry body recommended leveraging the newly notified BIS standards for higher ethanol blends, ranging from E22 to E30, by establishing a clear roadmap for their market introduction.

It called for fast-tracking flex‑fuel vehicles in ethanol‑producing states, alongside establishing a national framework for long‑haul LNG trucking with “vehicle incentives, refuelling corridors and transparent pricing”.

CII also suggested gradually transitioning a portion of LPG demand toward sustainable domestic alternatives, including electric and ethanol-based cooking, as well as green hydrogen where viable.

For longer‑term energy resilience, CII urged accelerating domestic oil and gas exploration, expediting the Strategic Petroleum Reserve expansion, and diversifying the sources for crude imports.

It also recommended expansion of newer energy avenues like coal gasification, methanol blending, bio-CNG, and nuclear power, including Small Modular Reactors (SMRs).

On fertilisers, CII proposed a phased transition of fertiliser subsidies toward a Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) model for farmers using digital infrastructure, including rural banking networks, mobile authentication, soil health registries, and specialised agricultural credit systems.

Subsidised input allocations should be precisely calibrated using digitised land records, crop cycles, and irrigation data, starting with targeted pilot districts.

Further, urea should be gradually integrated into the Nutrient Based Subsidy (NBS) framework to address the current pricing imbalances that lead to disproportionate nitrogen application and degraded soil quality, it added.

It also suggested near‑term measures to contain food inflation, including early, calibrated release of onion and tomato buffers under the Price Stabilisation Fund, action against hoarding, targeted transport support, cold-chain pre-positioning, and expanding direct farmer-to-consumer markets.

In addition, the industry chamber lauded “the government’s early response” that cushioned consumers from the initial fuel price spike and channelled gas towards critical sectors.

—IANS

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