Low duties, inadequate incentives keep the target slippery for edible oils

The new pursuit of self-reliance offers India’s edible oil industry a good opportunity to do away with the heavy reliance in imports. How is it that a country which has emerged as a major exporter of several agricultural commodities, including rice and cotton, will continue to be around 70 per cent dependent on imports of oils for human consumption? India is also a major importer of vegetable oils for making cosmetics, oleochemicals and medicines.

India’s oil marketing year runs from November to October and during 2018-19 vegetable oil imports were up 3.5 per cent to 15.55 million tonnes (mt), including