Facing the heat over price rise, the Centre is likely to extend the scheme to provide subsidised edible oil through Public Distribution System shops for the forthcoming festival season.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) is likely to
consider the proposal from Food Department to extend the scheme, launched ahead of festival season in July last year.
The government had planned to sell one million tonnes of edible oil at Rs 15-a-litre subsidy through PDS in the last fiscal for the period when the prices were ruling high. However, the scheme was poorly received with many states finding it difficult to undertake the scheme involving this perishable commodity. The scheme also faltered when the domestic edible oil prices eased.
In fact, the states lifted only 2.61 lakh tonnes of edible oil from about 3.6 lakh tonnes imported by the public sector firms. As domestic prices declined sharply, the government decided to provide an additional subsidy of Rs 10 a litre to enable distribution of the remaining stock of imported oil.
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