Food Minister seeks import duty hike on crude and refined edible oils

With the intent of restricting oil imports and protecting domestic farmers, the government is mulling over an issue of raising import duty on crude and refined edible oils, among other matters. In the wake of local prices of oil falling to historic lows due to cheaper imports from Malaysia and Indonesia, Industry body Solvent Extractors Association (SEA) has been demanding a duty hike in crude edible oils to 10% and on refined edible oils to 25%. Further, in the meeting held between the Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday, besides the import duty issue, problems faced by sugar mills in availing loans sanctioned through the Sugar Development Fund (SDF) along with the issue of additional budget allocation for FCI were discussed. Paswan, primarily, briefed Finance Minister about the current impasse between the UP sugar mills and the state government over cane price policy. The food minister was in the favour of relaxing certain norms so that sugar mills could avail loans easily from SDF, while seeking additional budget allocation for state-run Food Corporation of India (FCI) for giving food subsidies this fiscal. A budget allocation of Rs 92,000 crore has been made against the requirement of Rs 1,47,700 crore for this fiscal.