Cogencis (28/01/2020) NEW DELHI – The farm ministry has sought an allocation of 100 bln rupees in the upcoming Union Budget for 2020-21 (Apr-Mar) to launch a National Mission on Edible Oils to attain self sufficiency in edible oils, a senior government official said.

Under the mission, the government aims to increase production of oilseeds to over 47 mlntn by 2024-25 from around 32 mlntn now, the official said.

The government also plans to set up seed hubs to boost the area under oilseeds to over 30 mln ha from about 25 mln ha now. 

India produces just 10 mlntn edible oil from home-grown oilseeds and imports about 15 mlntn to meet the annual demand of 25 mlntn of cooking oils. 

"The mission will require around 10,000 crore (100 bln) rupees. It will help in saving over 70,000 crore (700 bln) rupees of annual import bill of edible oil by stemming their hefty imports," the official said.

The government wants India to achieve self-sufficiency in edible oils, on the lines of pulses, the official said.

Under the edible oil mission, the government aims to provide subsidy on good quality seeds and fertilisers to farmers and also soft loans to the processing industry. 

Focus will also be on setting up around 150 oilseed hubs in the country to produce high-yielding, drought-tolerant, and short duration seed varieties, the official said.

The government would encourage farmers to add more area under soybean, mustard, groundnut, sesame and safflower, which are primarily used as oilseed crops.

Efforts would also be made to produce oil from non-oilseed crops like cotton and rice which are also processed to produce cotton oil and rice bran oil, he said. A thrust will be given on increasing more area under plantation crops like oil palm.

India, the world's largest importer, imported 14.9 mlntn of edible oils in 2018-19 (Nov-Oct), of which almost two-thirds was palm oil. 

The mission was earlier known as National Vegetable Oil Mission and now it is rechristened as National Mission on Edible Oils, he said.

The farm ministry aimed to produce around 36 mlntn total oilseed production in 2019-20 (Jul-Jun) against 32 mlntn harvested last year, the official said.