Terming the import of cooking oil to the “agricultural land of India” a national shame, the Federation of Tamil Nadu Agricultural Association today blamed the Government for neglecting the domestic farmers’ interest, particularly coconut and groundnut growers.

Despite plenty of coconut, groundnut and gingelly available for extracting oil, the Government was importing palm oil from Malaysia and Indonesia to supply through the Public Distribution System at Rs. 30 per kg, with 50 per cent subsidy, S. Nallasamy, Secretary of the Association, said in a release here.

Though there was a provision of fixing 300 per cent import duty to protect the local farmers under WTO, the Government had fixed 12.5 per cent for crude and 20 per cent for refined imported oil, he claimed.

Stating that the import of oil, including soya from the U.S. and sunflower from Russia, was likely to increase by 11 per cent from the present 1.44 crore tonne next year, Nallasamy said that the government was helping the foreign farmers and neglecting the domestic.

If the government provided 50 per cent subsidy for coconut, groundnut and gingelly oil and supplied it through the PDS, the Indian farmers would be protected, since there was no remunerative prices for these crops, Nallasamy said.