Kishan Reddy ridicules TS’s claims on subsidies for oil palm cultivation

HYDERABAD: The state government and members of Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao’s family were making false claims on how the government was providing subsidies and facilitating cultivation of oil palm plantations, Union minister G. Kishan Reddy alleged on Thursday.

Reddy said the recent claim by finance minister T. Harish Rao that they were providing Rs 1 lakh per acre as subsidy for oil palm cultivation was false whereas bulk of the support for raising oil palm plantations comes from the Central government.

The National Mission on Edible Oil-Oil Palm (NMEO-OP) was an Rs 11,040-crore centrally sponsored scheme of which the Centre’s share stood at Rs 8,844 crore with a 60:40 sharing ratio with all states with the exception of north-east states where the Central share stood at at 90 per cent.

“A recent statement by a senior member of the Telangana government portrayed the subsidies being given to the state farmers for oil palm cultivation as an initiative of the state government,” Reddy said in a statement.

He said of that of the Centre’s share of Rs 8,844 crore, Rs 5,170 crore was allocated to general states like Telangana and of this the Centre’s share was Rs 3,560 crore.

Reddy said 15 per cent of total land potential for cultivation of palm oil nation-wide was in Telangana and NMEO-OP would immensely benefit the state farmers. The state had 4.6 lakh hectares spread over 27 districts where oil palm could be cultivated.

India is the largest importer of edible oils, he said, and was dependent on edible oil imports to meet its requirements. During 2020-21, India imported around 133.52 lakh tonnes of edible oils costing around Rs 80,000 crore with more than half the imports – 56 per cent - being palm oil. The aim was to reduce dependence on edible oil imports.