New Delhi: At a time when the prices of edible oils are on the rise, the consumers would have to cough up more to procure cooking oils for their daily needs as the government has made it clear that there is no plan to offer any subsidy on the essential item.
In a written reply to a question asked by Trinamool Congress MP Sajda Ahmed, Union Minister of State for Consumer Affairs Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti told Lok Sabha that the government has no proposal to offer subsidy on edible oils. It means consumers would have to buy edible oils at exorbitant prices.
However, the minister maintained that the government monitors the retail and wholesale prices of 22 essential food commodities, including edible oils submitted by the 179 price monitoring centres that have been set up with Central assistance by state governments and UT Administrations across the country.
Taking into account price trends, the government takes various measures from time to time to augment domestic availability and stabilize prices of essential food commodities. These steps include releases from the buffer to cool down prices, imposition of stock limit monitoring of stocks declared by entities to prevent hoarding as also requisite changes in trade policy instruments like rationalisation of import duty, changes in import quota, restrictions on exports of the commodity, etc.
In a bid to control the continuous rise in the cooking oil prices for the past one year, the Central government has cut the basic duty on Crude Palm oil, Crude soyabean oil, and Crude sunflower oil from 2.5 per cent to nil. The Agri-cess on these oils has been brought to 5 per cent.
"The current basic rate of import duty of zero percent on crude palm oil, crude soyabean oil and crude sunflower oil has been extended upto September 30, 2022 and the rate of import duty on refined palm oil 12.50 per cent, refined soyabean oil and refined sunflower oil al 17.5 per cent has also been extended up to September 30 this year," the minister said in her written reply.