India to import rice bran from neighbours

Capacity utilisation of solvent extraction units to go up, feed industry to benefit as well

Soon, India will import rice bran from its neighbours, including Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Myanmar. This follows the government doing away with a customs duty in this regard, against a duty of 15 per cent earlier. Rice bran oil is considered the healthiest edible oil available in India.

While presenting Budget 2014-15, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday exempted rice bran from import duty to help domestic processing units.

The Indian edible oil processing sector has capacity to produce 1.4 million tonnes (mt) of rice bran a year; of this, only 65 per cent is used, owing to lower availability of rice bran from local sources. And, the 15 per cent duty discouraged the import of bran.

“Therefore, we had urged the government to exempt rice bran from import duty, which was honoured. Now, the sector will be able to import rice bran for processing locally. The business will be viable,” said B V Mehta, executive director, Solvent Extractors’ Association (SEA).

India will now be able to import rice bran from neighbouring countries including Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Myanmar. Looking at the El Nino threat and the likely negative impact on oilseed production, the import duty exemption on rice bran will raise oil availability from domestic sources, albeit marginally.

SEA president Vijay Data said, “The association had told the government in the wake of the threat of the El Niño and its likely impact on oilseed production, we should be allowed to import oil cakes and rice bran at ‘nil’ duty, as this would provide raw material to the solvent extraction segment and the oil meals produced would meet the requirement of the feed sector. Jaitley exempted de-oiled soya extract, groundnut oil cake/oil cake meal, sunflower oilcake/oil cake meal, canola oil cake/oil cake meal, mustard oil cake/oil cakemeal, rice bran/rice bran oil cake and palm kernel cake from import duty up to December 2014."

Rice bran oil is rich in mono-unsaturated fatty acids and has a higher cholesterol reducing power than other poly-unsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) rich oils due to the presence of oryzanol. Rice bran oil produced from the bran of paddy extracted through the physical refining process contains natural vitamin E, which is an antioxidant and helps improve neurological functioning.

Due to its high antioxidant content, rice bran oil fights free radicals that harm the immune system. Regarded as one of the world's healthiest oils, the  commodity is recommended by many leading cardiologists, diabetologists, nutritionists and health advisors the world over.

A R Sharma, chairman, Rice Bran Oil Promotion Council, said India produced about 800,000 tonnes of rice bran every year, adding it was the second-largest producer of rice, after China. Of the output, only 300,000 tonnes are used as edible oil, while the rest is used by the vanaspati segment, or blended with other oils and sold as branded products.