'C' welcomes proposal of National Mission for Edible Oils in Union Budget
23-Jul-2024 09:07 PM
Mumbai. Solvent Extraction Association of India (C) has welcomed and supported the proposal to set up a "National Mission for Edible Oils" in the Union Budget for the financial year 2024-25 and congratulated and thanked the government.
The association says that this will give special attention to major oilseed crops like mustard, groundnut, soybean, sesame and sunflower and will help in reducing imports and moving towards achieving self-sufficiency in the matter of edible oils.
According to the association, the formation of the National Mission will make it easier to work seriously on many important aspects, including research and development for high-yield varieties of oilseed crops, large-scale adoption of modern agricultural technology and methods,
establishing direct contact with the market, ensuring procurement of oilseeds, promoting value addition and increasing the scope of crop insurance.
The Association is confident that the Government will provide adequate funds for this important mission to ensure game checking results and help reduce dependence on import of edible oils from abroad while increasing the expected domestic production of oilseed oil in the coming years.
But the Association is extremely disappointed that no announcement has been made in the budget to increase the import duty on edible oils as well as to increase the price difference between crude and refined edible oils.
The Association has been continuously demanding that there should be a difference of at least 15 percent in the rate of import duty on these two categories of edible oils. Needless to say that the Association has been repeatedly demanding the Government to increase the import duty on edible oils so that the indigenous oilseed producers can get an incentive for better production.
But it appears that the Union Finance Minister did not pay attention to it. According to the Association, the indigenous refining industry is going through a huge crisis due to the huge import of refined edible oil (mainly RBD Palmolein).
The government had raised the slogan of 'Make in India' but the current policy is going against it. It is a pleasant announcement made in the budget that during the Kharif season, a digital survey of crops covered by 6 crore farmers in 400 districts of the country will be conducted.