Under budgeting for various subsidies has always been amongst the Government's favourite activities. Thus, subsidies on fertilisers are no different. It is believe that the actual subsidy may overshoot the budgeted one by a whopping Rs 40,000 crores. And to make matters worse, the country is staring at a huge stockpile of unsold fertilisers. Just to put things in perspective, we started the current financial year with unsold fertiliser inventory to the tune of 3 m tonnes. However, we could start the next financial year with record high stocks of close to 8 m tonnes! Of course, erratic monsoon was one of the reasons the unsold inventory shot up. But the Government's move to cut nutrient-based subsidy rates has also played a big role in bringing about this state of affairs. Sadly, nobody was prepared for this and people have no idea of what to do about it. Clearly, disposal of such a huge stock may eventually result into a further burden on the exchequer.