Govt scraps import duty on oil-cakes to check prices

The government today removed customs duty on oil-cake to check its prices as it is used as animal feed.
Customs duty on oil cake, which is used as part of the feed/fodder for both cattle and poultry, stood at 15 per cent.
Full exemption from customs duty is being granted to de-oiled soya extract, groundnut oil-cake, sunflower oil-cake, canola oil-cake, mustard oil-cake, rice bran oil-cake and palm kenel cake up to December 31 this year, the budget documents showed.
Welcoming the move Solvent Extractors Association (SEA) Executive Director B V Mehta said, "...To allow import of oil cakes and rice bran at NIL duty as this would provide raw material to the solvent extraction industry and also the oil meals produced would meet the requirement of the feed industry."

Mehta added that the impact on the prices will be marginal but imports are expected to rise.
However, association expressed disappointment that there was no change in import duty of vegetable oils.
The industry had demanded that import duty on refined oil be raised to create a healthy duty difference of about 15 per cent between crude and refined vegetable oil to save the domestic refining industry from collapse.