The Centre has extended a stock limit on oilseeds and edible oils by six months to December 31, 2022, in an attempt to check hoarding and arrest rising prices in view of the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war resulting in supply restrictions in import of edible oils. This will come into effect from April 1. India is the world’s biggest importer of edible oils and prices of cooking oils have risen sharply because of a rally in global prices. The stock
limit was earlier applicable until June 30.
A notification from the Ministry of Food, Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution’s Department of Food and Public Distribution published on Wednesday, extended the date from March 31 to December 31.
Domestic prices have been impacted by the high prices of edible oils in the international market. Majority of India’s import of sunflower oil comes from Ukraine. The shortage in the global supply chain has had an impact on Indian markets too.
The government had claimed that it formulated a multi-pronged strategy to ensure that the prices of essential commodities such as edible oils, remain controlled. Measures like rationalisation of import duty structure, launching of a web-portal for self-disclosure of stocks held by various stakeholders, have already been taken.
Under this amendment, the stock limits for edible oils are 30 quintals for retail and 500 quintals for wholesale while the same for oilseeds will be 100 quintals and 2,000 quintals, respectively. In both cases, the time for processors is 90 days of storage/production capacity.
“The above decision was taken after deliberations at the highest level on the upward price trends of all edible oils owing to the current geo-political situations across the globe. The pressure on sunflower oil supplies from Ukraine has had a rub on effect on the export policy of Indonesia, affecting palm oil imports; also, it was compounded by crop loss concerns in South America, impacting soybean oil supplies due to which the international prices of soyabean oil has shown a large upward trend. International Prices of Soyabean Oil increased by 5.05% over the month and by 42.22% over the year. The international prices of palm oils, both crude and refined, have decreased over the week and over the month and starting January, 2022 have showed a substantial increasing trend,” the ministry said in a statement.