Major edible oil companies, including Adani Wilmar and Ruchi Soya, have reduced the maximum retail price (MRP) of their products by 10-15%, according to industry body SEA.
To provide relief to consumer, the government has recently slashed import duty on edible oils from the surge in global commodity prices. Further, states have also been told to follow the union government policy and ensure that edible oil prices are brought down.
The basic customs duty on crude palm oil, crude soya-bean oil and crude sunflower seed oil has been reduced from 2.5% to naught.
Crude palm oil also benefits from a sharp cut in agriculture cess from 20% to 7.5%. Agriculture cess on both crude soya-bean oil and crude sunflower oil has been reduced from 20% to 5%. All the changes are effective from Thursday till the end of March 2022.
Recently, Union Food Secretary Sudhanshu Pandey had called a meeting of industry leaders a few days back and requested them to respond positively to the reduction in import duties which the government had announced.
The prices have been reduced by Adani Wilmar (on Fortune brands), Ruchi Soya (Mahakosh, Sunrich, Ruchi Gold and Nutrella brands), Emami (Healthy & Tasty brands), Bunge (Dalda, Gagan, Chambal brands) and Gemini (Freedom sunflower oil brands), it said.
COFCO (Nutrilive brands), Frigorifico Allana (Sunny brands), Gokul Agro (Vitalife, Mahek and Zaika brands) and others have also reduced prices, it added.
"We are happy to share that our leading members have responded proactively and reduced MRP on edible oils marketed by them, across the board by 10-15% to provide relief to consumers during the festival season," Solvent Extractors Association of India (SEA) said in a statement.
The industry body said it is hopeful the New Year would bring happier tidings for consumers with expectations of a large domestic mustard crop coupled with softening international prices in coming months. The SEA further said that the exorbitant price increase in edible oils during the last few months on account of high international prices was unnerving domestic consumers as well as policy makers.
The last reduction on import duty was done by the government on December 20 when the basic customs duty on refined palm oil was brought down to 12.5% from 17.5% till the end of March 2022.
To boost supplies, the government has allowed traders to import refined palm oil without licence for one more year till December 2022 and markets regulator banned launch of new derivative contracts of crude palm oil and a few other agricultural commodities.
According to the SEA, India's dependence on import of edible oils is nearly 65 per cent of the total consumption of about 22-22.5 million tonne.
The country imports 13-15 million tonne to bridge the gap between demand and domestic supply. For the last two marketing years (November to October), due to the pandemic, the imported quantity reduced to nearly 13 million tonne.
