Modi government made cooking oil cheaper by cutting import duty

Giving some relief to the common people from inflation, the government has decided to reduce the import duty on soya oil and sunflower oil from 15% to 7.5%. Earlier, the government had also cut import duty on crude palm oil.

Overall, the effective duty has been reduced by 8.25% inclusive of all taxes. The overall fee has come down from 38.50 per cent to 30.25 per cent. Agricultural Cess and Social Welfare Cess are also included in the total fee.

The reduction in import duty will directly benefit the kitchen budget of the common people, although this reduction in import duty is only till 30 September. At present, the government imports 15 million tonnes of edible oil annually, valued at around Rs 70,000 crore. While the country's annual consumption is 25 million tonnes of edible oil. Palm oil in India is imported from both Malaysia and Indonesia. India imported 7.2 million tonnes of palm oil from Malaysia and Indonesia last year. Palm oil accounts for about 55 per cent of the total imports. 34 lakh tonnes of soybean oil was imported from Brazil and Argentina and 2.5 million tonnes of sunflower oil was imported from Russia and Ukraine.

Earlier, the Modi government had approved the plan of Palm Oil Mission in the cabinet meeting held on Wednesday. To increase the availability of edible oils, the government announced a Palm Oil Mission (National Edible Oil Mission-Oil Palm- NMEO-OP) worth Rs 11,040 crore. The government has taken this step to make India self-reliant in the matter of edible oils. This mission of the government will reduce the dependence on import of palm oil and will also pave the way for increasing the income of the farmers. At the same time, the oil industry will also benefit.

It was also decided in the cabinet meeting that if the market fluctuates and the price of the farmer's crop falls, then the difference amount will be paid by the central government to the farmers through DBT. The amount which was given earlier in agricultural material has also been increased. In order to enable people to set up industries in the North-East region, it was decided to provide an assistance of Rs.5 crore to the industry.