With prices of edible oils threatening to remain elevated during the festivals, the Centre Wednesday virtually abolished the basic customs duty on crude varieties of palm, soybean and sunflower oil and also slashed the agri-cess on them till March 2022, barely days after it authorised states to impose stock limits on oilseeds and edible oil.
However, traders and market watchers said that timing of the cut could have a negative impact on farmers’ realisation as they are harvesting their kharif soybean and groundnut crop.
While, at the same, how much it will impact final consumer prices is also unclear as already international markets had priced in the duty reduction and pushed up prices to negate the impact. India imports 55-60 per cent of its annual edible oil consumption, as domestic production is not enough to meet the demand.
The Solvent Extractors Association (SEA), a the premier body of domestic oilseed proc
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