Currently, different oils have different duties. While crude palm, sunflower and soyabean has nil base duty, refined sunflower and soybeans have 17.5% and refined palm oil has 12.5% base duties. The industry has demanded an additional increase of 15% in all the existing base duties.
The central government announced it will procure soyabean at Minimum Support Price (MSP) under the Price Support Scheme in poll bound Maharashtra along with Karnataka and Telangana as the current soyabean prices are close to what they were a decade ago.
As the announcement disappointed the soybean farmers from Madhya Pradesh, who were not included in the procurement scheme, the government said that even MP can propose to implement the scheme.
The MSP of soyabean for kharif 2024 is Rs 4892/quintal, while prices in the open market fell below Rs 4000/quintal before recovering to Rs 4200-4300/quintal.
As prices of soyabean and onions had affected election results in at least eight assembly seats in Maharashtra, the state government requested the centre to procure soyabean at MSP. Soyabean would be harvested around the time when the state would be facing assembly elections.However, the edible oil industry, which makes profits by selling the oil and the soyabean meal, which is a byproduct of oil production, is worried about realisations.”The government has looked at only one thing, which is the soyabean prices. But it should also look at the cooking oil prices, which are under pressure due to cheap imports. We need to either increase the import duty on oils or implement the Bhavantar scheme to address the issue of soyabean prices,” said DN Pathak, executive director, Solvent Extractors Association of India (SOPA).
Last year, the central government had cut basic customs duty on crude palm, soyabean and sunflower oil nil and reduced it to 12.5% on refined oils to control food inflation.
“The import duty on all cooking oils should be increased to 15% from the current levels, which will also help improve prices received for farmers. Cheap import of cooking oils has kept domestic cooking oil prices suppressed, while the prices of soyabean meal prices are subdued due to the global glut,” said BV Mehta, executive director, the Solvent Extractors’ Association of India.