Edible Oil prices declined by Rs 8-10 per Kg in the past month mainly due to lower import duties, and may continue to decline further by Rs 3-4/kg in the coming months on the account of higher domestic output of oilseeds.
Solvent Extractors’ Association of India President Atul Chaturvedi said, “The last few months have been haunting the Indian edible oil consumer due to very high prices of all oils like palm, soya & sunflower”.
SEA had advised its members before diwali to reduce prices to the maximum extent possible, he said. The centre had also reduced import duties on edible oils. Chaturvedi further said “We are happy to confirm all these actions have resulted in edible oil prices coming down by around Rs 8-10 per Kg in the last 30 days”.
With a large soybean crop of 120 Lakh tonnes and groundnut crop in excess of 80 Lakh tonnes, Chaturvedi said, edible oil prices will now remain under control.
“The best part is that high mustard seed prices have brought a massive supply side response from the farmers and they have planted an all-time high mustard crop in about 77.62 lakh hectares. This figure is higher by almost 30 percent and has the potential of increasing domestic mustard oil availability by 8 to 10 lakh tonnes in the coming year,” he added.
Chaturvedi said “The global trend of edible oil prices is relatively on the declining side and we feel prices would continue to decline.”
India’s Dependence on Edible Oil Imports:
India heavily depends on edible oil imports. Nearly 65% of the total consumption of about 22-22.5 million tones is imported in India. That means India imports nearly 13-15 million tones to bridge the gap between demand and domestic supply. For the last 2 years, due to the pandemic =, import has reduced to nearly 13 million tonnes.
In 2019-20, the import dropped to 13.2 million tonnes which is equal to Rs 71,600 Crore. In 2020-21, India imported almost the same amount but the cost hiked by 63% and touched an alarming level of Rs 1.17 lakh Crore due to hike in International prices of edible oils.
