Absence Of Govt Control On Edible Oil Prices Attacked

Parliamentary standing committees crack whip on govt functioning

The parliamentary standing committee on civil supplies yesterday rejected the governments approach of not having price control on edible oils in the open market. The government should ensure their availability at reasonable price, it said.

In its 11th report placed in Parliament yesterday, the committee said the gap between the open sale price of edible oils and oils supplied through public distribution system (PDS) must be kept at the barest minimum.

The committee said it did not share the perception of the government that as a result of decontrol and deregulation in the trade and commerce of edible oils, the government does not have any proposal to exercise any price control on edible oils in the open market and the price control of imported edible oils for PDS would continue.

 

It said Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra had substantial demand of palmoline for PDS, while consumer states like Bihar, UP, Punjab and Rajasthan had negligible demand. Viewing that diversion of edible oil from the PDS into open market was rampant in oil producing states, the committee asked the government to take result-oriented steps to plug the loopholes in the diversion of edible oils.

While stating that the Centre had been advising the states to effectively curb unethical trade practices like hoarding, blackmarketing and profiteering, the civil aviation ministry had earlier informed the committee that it had been made obligatory for manufacturers to print the maximum prices on all the items sold in the packaged form.

But it had no proposal to have any price control on edible oil in the open market under the policy of decontrol and deregulation as a number of manufacturers, both national and multinational, were competing in manufacturing refined oils, the ministry said.

The committee regretted that the government and the National Oilseeds & Vegetable Oils Development Board (Novodb) had not taken any concrete steps to exploit the secondary sources of edible oils.

Noting that per capita consumption of edible oil in India was about 7 kg a year as against the world average of 16 kg, it once again asked the government to conduct a survey to ascertain as to why consumption was low in the country.

Earlier, the ministry had ascribed the lower purchasing power coupled with high prices of edible oils compared to international prices, as reasons for low consumption.