Duty hike on crude, refined oils to hugely benefit farmers: Official

Government increases customs duty on oil to benefit farmers, removes export price restrictions to boost agricultural sector.

“The Government’s decision to hike customs duty on crude palm and refined sunflower oil to 20% and 32.5%, respectively, will ‘hugely’ benefit farmers as it will increase their income,” a senior official said on Saturday (September 14, 2024).

The Government official also said that the decision to remove the minimum export price and slash the export duty on onions too would help farmers in the country.

According to a Finance Ministry notification, the basic customs duty on crude palm, soybean, and sunflower seed oil has been increased from nil to 20%.

Basic customs duty on refined palm, soybean and sunflower oil has been hiked from 12.5% to 32.5%.

The effective duty on these crude and refined oils will increase from 5.5% to 27.5% and from 13.75% to 35.75%, respectively.

"These are big support for soya and oilseed farmers. Farmers from Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh will get hugely benefited as they account for significant production of these oil seeds," the official said.

The official added that these measures were possible because of the effective management of the Government to contain domestic prices of edible oil, which have been falling continuously for nearly two years now.