The country’s apex edible oil industry body has urged the government to impose 10% duty on crude palm oil and 17.5% on refined palm oil imports to create a level-playing field for domestic crushers, reports Our Bureau. Local crushers pay around 10% VAT and duties such as mandi tax and octroi, leading to Rs 600-700 disparity in processing soyabean and mustard seed into oil or oilmeal, used as animal feed and also exported. The SEA met with officials from the agriculture and commerce ministries twice during the last fortnight to apprise them of the fate of local oil mills. They have contended that price volatility, mainly due to speculation in the futures market, in mustard and soyabean seed has led growers to hold on to their stocks in the hope of getting higher prices, leading to 180 lakh tonne of oilseeds lying uncrushed. This has led to increased imports of vegetable oils over the past few months even as oilseed stocks which can be processed into 40 lakh tonne of edible oils are lying uncrushed.a.
