Rapeseed arrivals in various marketing yards in India's major producing state of Rajasthan have shown a small increase in recent weeks, they said.

``We had high hopes that the prices will improve, but there has been no increase in prices in the last few months,'' farmer Prabhu Bagra said on Wednesday.

The expectations of higher returns were based on last year's trends when oil prices surged after several Indian states banned the use of mustard oil.

The ban came amid concern over rising deaths from a dropsy disease caused by the consumption of adulterated mustard oil.

``It was illogical for farmers to expect a rise in prices because the increase last year was an aberration,'' said a trader at a commodity brokerage in Mumbai.

The mustard oil scare had cut into the local availability of edible oils, prompting a sharprise in imports of other oils.

``Imports of palm olein oil in bulk quantity has now made it clear that edible oil prices will not increase,'' Bagra said.

``Our hopes of getting Rs 2,000 ($46.24) a quintal (100 kg) for rapeseed might remain a distant dream,'' he said.

Traders said mustard seed prices were now quoted at around Rs 1,280 per quintal, down from year-ago prices of Rs 1,800.

Mustard accounts for about 25 per cent of the domestic oils output and is used mostly in eastern and northern states for cooking.

``The bulk imports of palm olein oil from Malaysia has left us with no hope,'' said a foodgrain dealer, Dwarka Das Khandelwal in Jaipur.

India's rapeseed crop totals nearly five million tonnes from which 1.7 million tonnes of oil is extracted.

Industry officials estimate the 1998-99 (November-October) crop at 5.65 million tonnes, up from 4.65 million in the previous year.

``It seems that the farmers have started feeling that it is not worth it to hold stocks. They are not confidentof getting the expected prices,'' marketing director, Mohammad Shafi Qureshi, at Rajasthan's agriculture department said.

``Small farmers who have no capacity to hold back have started disposing of their stocks,'' he said.

Joint director oilseeds, KN Goel, at Rajasthan's agriculture department, said the state's 1998-99 rapeseed production is estimated at 2.43 million tonnes, up from 2.04 million tonnes in the previous year.