Crushing of oilseeds has halved in the first 5 months of the current oil year (November-October) due to the prices for such processing are not viable, complains the industry. It says mills are operating between 40 and 50 per cent of capacity.
It blames lack of protection from imports and the ability of farmers and aggregators to hold on to the stocks in anticipation of higher prices. For more than a year, the industry has been demanding nil import duty on unrefined vegetable oil be raised to 37.5 per cent and for refined oil from the present 7.5 per cent to 45 per cent.