Vegetable oil imports may touch 8 million tonne in the current oil year (Nov 2008-Oct 2009). So far, 5.8 million tonnes have already been imported this year.
The oilseeds production in the country is stagnant at around 26-27 million tonnes and productivity is estimated to be 950 kg per hectare. Moreover, India is heavily dependent on imports. In the last oil year, the country imported 6.3 million tonnes of vegetable oils at a cost of about Rs 20,000 crore.
“This oil year, we will be forced to import about 8 million tonnes valued at over Rs 20,000 crore to bridge the gap between demand and supply,” Ashok Sethia, president, Solvent Extractors’ Association of India (SEA) said in a statement.
It may be mentioned here that the vegetable oils imports during the first eight months of oil year 2008-09 increased 79 per cent to 5.8 million tonnes from 3.5 million tonnes for the same period of last year.
During June 2009, import stood at 781,000 tonnes compared with 594,000 tonnes in June 2008, a rise of 31 per cent.
Expressing concern over vegetable oil imports increasing to 50 per cent, the apex trade body has reiterated its demand to re-impose custom duty on vegetable oils to check excessive import and suggested creation of oilseeds development fund.
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Meanwhile, SEA has also revised rapeseed-mustard crop estimate for 2008-09.
The SEA Rapeseed-Mustard Promotion Council has reduced the rapeseed-mustard crop by 200,000 tonnes to 6.2 million tonnes. Earlier, the association had in February 2009 predicted a total crop of 6.4 million tonnes.