Cabinet okays Rs 11,040 cr to boost oil palm farming
New Delhi: In a move aimed at reducing the country's dependency on imported oils and give a boost to oil palm farming, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the National Mission on Edible Oils – Oil Palm (NMEO-OP) with a financial outlay of Rs 11,040 crore to promote the domestic cultivation of oil palm in the next five years.
Out of the total financial outlay of Rs 11,040 crore for the scheme, Rs 8,844 crore is the share of Central government while Rs 2,196 crore is the share of state, which includes the viability gap funding too.
The decision comes after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the new central scheme on August 15 during his Independence Day speech at Red Fort. Surprisingly, it may be a coincidence that the decision in this regard has been taken just a few days after Yoga guru Baba Ramdev's Patanjali group-led Ruchi Soya announced its mega plan to start palm oil plantations in Assam, Tripura and other north eastern states in early August.
While announcing the Cabinet decision, Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said, "Under this scheme, it is proposed to cover an additional area of 6.5 lakh hectare for oil palm till the year 2025-26 and thereby reaching the target of 10 lakh hectares ultimately. The production of crude palm oil (CPO) is expected to go upto 11.20 lakh tonnes by 2025-26 and upto 28 lakh tonnes by 2029-30."
"India is dependent on imports of edible oil as of the total edible oil import, 56 per cent is palm oil. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research has estimated that India can cultivate around 28,00,000 hectares of land for palm oil trees, particularly in the northeast region and Andaman and Nicobar Islands due to suitable climatic conditions," he said, adding that in north east region where over 9,00,000 hectares of land is feasible for palm oil cultivation.
The scheme would immensely benefit the oil palm farmers, increase capital investment, create employment generation, shall reduce the import dependence and also increase the income of the farmers, Tomar said. Clearing the doubts of farmers over price fluctuation, the agriculture minister said that the Centre will fix the cost of raw materials needed for palm oil production.
"Like MSP (minimum support price), we will fix the price of this raw material (cultivated by farmers). It will encourage the farmers for palm oil cultivation and in case prices of the raw material crops drop, the government will pay the differential amount to farmers through DBT," he said.
"The government has also more than doubled the assistance to Rs 29,000 per ha from Rs 12,000 per ha to oil palm growers for planting material under the central scheme. Also, a special assistance at Rs 250 per plant will be given to replant old gardens for rejuvenation of old gardens," he said.
