Reducing edible oil imports

India needs a stable policy framework

Just days after Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman spoke in her Budget speech about boosting the output of oilseeds to reduce dependence on imports for edible oils, the government has opted to extend stockholding curbs on oilseeds and edible oils, which are bound to prove counterproductive. This decision also ignores the caution voiced in the Economic Survey against knee-jerk reactions to price fluctuations of essential items, which send wrong signals to domestic producers. The move, moreover, is mistimed for several reasons. For one, the prices of most cooking oils are either stable or on the slide ever since the stock