Edible oils: Centre to hold meet with states today to review action on stock holding order

New Delhi: The Centre on Sunday said it is monitoring the prices of cooking oils as demand rises during the festive season and will hold a virtual meeting with states on October 25 to review action taken by them on its stock holding limit order.

On October 10, the Centre had imposed stock limits on traders of edible oils and oilseeds, barring certain importers and exporters, till March 31, in a bid to control domestic prices and provide relief to consumers.

State governments and union territories were to decide the stock limit to be imposed on edible oils and oilseeds after taking into account the available stock and consumption pattern of that particular state or UT.

According to an official statement, the Department of Food and Public Distribution will be meeting all States/UTs on Monday, October 25, 2021, through video conferencing to "review the action taken on the stock limit order on edible prices."

In a letter written to all states by Union Food Secretary Sudhanshu Pandey on Friday, the department outlined initiatives taken by the Centre to ease prices of edible oils for the relief of consumer and keeping the festive season in mind.

The department is "monitoring the prices of edible oils" as well as the domestic supply, the statement said. "This is especially important to the context of the upcoming festival season in which demand of edible oils will increase," it added.

The Centre has already taken various steps to cool down the high prices, including sharp reduction in import duties of palm oil, sunflower oil and soyabean oil. That apart, the department said that stock disclosure notification has been issued and a web portal has been created to monitor the stock of edible oils/oilseeds on a weekly basis in the country.

The department noted that the demand of edible oils varies in different states/UTs as per the preference of the consumers.

"However, for finalizing the stock limit quantity of edible oils and oilseeds, the states/UTs may consider/explore the previous stock limit imposed for edible oils and oilseeds by the state/UTs," the department said.

Any stakeholder (refiners, miller, wholesaler etc.) should not hold the stocks in excess of two months of the storage capacity, it suggested the states.

"For guidance states may prefer to indicative limits which may have been imposed by states earlier...," the statement said.