Telangana Agriculture Minister Niranjan Reddy today urged the Centre to reduce import duty on oil palm plants to push its production.
The minister wrote a letter to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in this regard. Niranjan Reddy stressed the need for encouraging oil palm production across the in a big way.
He informed that Telangana plans to plant saplings of oil palm in 20 lakh acres. We need 14.40 crores of oil palm plants for its cultivation to cater to future needs, the minister said. The Centre increased import duty on oil palm saplings only to incur losses he felt. This should be reduced to encourage the farmers to take up oil palm cultivation, he appealed.
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For this we need to encourage the farmers to go in for production of Oil palm cultivation. The country consumes more oil by people as the nation produces fewer quantities of oil palm. Keeping this in view we need to support and give all incentives to the farmers in the country, the minister said.
Niranjan Reddy also said that unless the Centre decreases import duty on the oil palm plants, the country cannot improve its production capabilities, he said.
The Minister hoped that the Centre will take necessary action and support oil palm production, he said.
SOURCE-NSS
