The Union government’s 100 days programme, likely to be announced soon, may include launching the much-awaited National Mission on Oilseeds under which the Agriculture Ministry targets to raise domestic oilseeds production by additional 2-3 million tonnes (mt) by 2025-26 from current about 40-41 mt and to further lower India’s import dependency on edible oils.

“There will be a long-term programme as well as short-term programme. Since the import dependency on edible oils has come down to about 56 per cent in 2022-23 oil year (November-October) from a high of over 63 per cent in 2015-16, the challenge is how to further reduce it by raising production of all types of domestic sources, despite limitation on area,” an official source said.

It is learnt that the government targets to raise edible oil production from domestic sources to 14.5 mt, including 1.1 mt of crude palm oil (CPO) by 2025-26 oil year from 12.69 mt in 2022-23.

In 2022-23 Budget speech, the Finance Minister had announced: “To reduce our dependence on import of oilseeds, a rationalised and comprehensive scheme to increase domestic production of oilseeds will be implemented.”

In the 2023-24 Budget, the Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare stated that the promise of a comprehensive scheme was “substantially implemented under the National Food Security Mission (Oilseeds) and the National Mission of Edible Oil (Oil Palm)“ after taking routine steps like releasing new varieties.

However, during the 2024-25 interim Budget, the finance minister said: “Building on the initiative announced in 2022, a strategy will be formulated to achieve ‘atmanirbharta’ for oil seeds such as mustard, groundnut, sesame, soybean, and sunflower. This will cover research for high-yielding varieties, widespread adoption of modern farming techniques, market linkages, procurement, value addition, and crop insurance.”

The Centre, in August 2021, rolled out the ₹11,040-crore National Mission on Edible Oils – Oil Palm (NMEO-OP) as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme with a special focus on the North-East region and the Andaman and Nicobar islands. There is a target to bring in additional area of 6.5 lakh hectare (lh), taking the total area under oil palm cultivation to 10 lh by 2025-26.

India’s import bill of edible oils dipped to ₹1.38-lakh crore in 2022-23 oil year from a record ₹1.56-lakh crore in 2021-22. The import was estimated at ₹1.17-lakh crore in 2020-21.

Total edible oils import declined by 5.38 per cent 8.57 mt during the first seven months (November-May) of the current oil year from 9.06 mt in the year-ago period, according to industry body Solvent Extractors’ Association of India (SEA).

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