The centre is not favourable in permitting imports though it had announced earlier that it would approach the issue positively. After permitting to import one lakh tonne of soyabean seeds in March, the centre did not issue any notification on the issue.

Moreover, the three-member committee appointed by the ministry of agriculture to look into the issue has also not made any progress even after three months of its formation. A ray of hope was seen after a gap of almost 18 years when the ministry decided to set up the sub-committee to look into the possibility of allowing oilseeds import. However, the import was permitted only for crushing purposes and not for sowing. If the policy had been cleared, it would have met a long-standing demand of the oilseeds processing industry that the country shouldbe importing oilseeds along with oils.The three-member sub-committee was to submit is recommendations by early April. The report was supposed to look into the issue of plant quarantine which was the deciding factor for allowing import of oilseeds. A meeting chaired by ministry of agriculture joint secretary (plant protection) KM Chandra in March discussed the issue of imports of oilseeds and oil-bearing materials at length and officials confirmed that there would not be any problem from the plant quarantine angle for imports of ricebran and its oilcake.

Currently, India exports 4.3 million tonnes of oilmeals, annually bringing in $875 million of foreign exchange. Thus, the plan to import oilseeds (for crushing pursposes only) will further give a boost to the export potential.Imports of oilseeds and oil-bearing materials (like oilcakes) are banned through an umbrella order in the belief that imports may also bring in some disease spreading pests that could disturb/destroy the local crop of oilseeds.However, the import of edible oil is allowed freely under open general licence.

The ban order would have been reversed if the recommendations of the proposed three-member committee were positive. The committee was also going to look into pest risk analysis (PRA) in respect of soyabean, sunflower seed and rapeseed, and may well recommend imports of these oilseeds.These oilseeds are mainly used for crushing purposes. Their extraction are used as protein material for animal feed. The oil extracted is marketed in the open market. Thus, the fear that virus-generating pests are also been imported with the imports is misplaced.The intention of setting up the committee was itself the first positive step by the government to consider permitting imports of oil-bearing materials, industry sources say.

A decision to allow import of oilseeds will bail out the raw material-strapped oil crushing industry in a country that boasts of a large oil-crushing capacity.

The country has about 15,000 oil mills, over 600 solventextraction plants, 300 vegetable oil refineries and 175 hydrogenation plants.

The country churns out 70 to 75 lakh tonnes of vegetable oil annually.

The average utilisation of installed capacity is over 35-40 per cent, which means that about 60 per cent capacity remains unutilised for want of raw material -- oilseeds.

The country has not yet attained world-level average yields in oilseed production. The current oilseeds productivity in India is 851 kg per hectare against the world average of about 2,500 kg per hectare. The irony is there has not been any attempt to increase the yield.

According to trade circles, there was a tussle between the commerce ministry and the agricultural ministry on the issue of permitting oilseeds import. While the commerce ministry was in favour of oilseed imports, the agriculture ministry had said the imported seeds could be contaminated and bear diseases.

ICAR scientists have till now believed that the imported oilseeds might contain inherent pests or diseases that maygo into sowing.

But traders say this is only an excuse to prevent imports.

They are of the view that initially imports could be confined to ricebran, sunflower seed, rapeseed `00' variety and other oil-bearing material, which are mostly byproducts of oil-bearing seeds and do not go into sowing.

These products do not fall under high plant quarantine risk and thus are safe to import. It seems that this argument has found favour with the government.

As far as quarantine issue is concerned, traders say the country did not face any problem during the three-year period of the Janata government (from 1977 to 1979) when oilseeds were permitted to be imported.