NEW DELHI: The central government on Wednesday scrapped basic customs duty on crude varieties of palm, sunflower and soyabean oils as well as cut duties on refined edible oils to ease retail prices of cooking oils and provide relief to consumers during the festive season.

Edible oil industry body Solvent Extractor's Association of India (SEA) said the retail prices of cooking oils, which are ruling at a very high level, could now come down by up to Rs 15 per litre. The cut in import duty and cess, effective from October 14, will remain in force till March 31, 2022, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) said in two separate notifications. Agri infrastructure development cess (AIDC) has also been reduced on crude palm oil, crude soyabean oil and crude sunflower oil.Crude palm oil will now attract AIDC of 7.5 percent, while the cess will be 5 percent each for crude soyabean oil and crude sunflower oil. Earlier, the cess was 20 percent, while basic customs duty was 2.5 percent. Post reduction, the effective customs duty on crude palm oil will be 8.25 percent.

 The effective duty on crude soyabean oil and crude sunflower oil will be 5.5 percent. Earlier, the effective duty on these three crude items was 24.75 percent each. The basic customs duty on refined varieties of sunflower, soyabean, palmolein and palm oil too has been slashed to 17.5 percent each from 32.5 percent.

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