Can you tell me about the latest cuts in duties on edible oil by the government?

In a massive bid to fight inflation, the RBI and the government are attacking inflation both on the monetary and the fiscal front. With CPI inflation at 7.79%, government has made curbing inflation a priority. It all began with rate hikes and CRR hike in the May 04th meeting of the MPC. This was followed by a cut in excise duties on petrol and diesel by Rs8 per litre and Rs6 per litre respectively. Subsequently, even steel exports were made tougher with higher export duties while input imports were made cheaper for steel.

Now the government is attacking cost and supply constraints. It first curbed wheat exports and followed it up with a export limit of 10 million tonnes of sugar for the current sugar year extending from October to September. Now in a bid to address the edible oil shortages, the government has cut customs duty on imported soybean and sunflower oil from 5.5% to 0% subject to an import limit of 2 million tonnes. It may be recollected that edible oil prices shot up after Indonesia banned export of palm oil. In short, inflation fight is on.