Consider the following statements 1) The quantity of imported edible oils is more than the domestic production of edible oils in the last five years. 2) The Government does not impose any customs duty on all the imported edible oils a special case. Which of the statements given above is/are correct-?

Statement 1 is correct and Statement 2 is wrong, so the answer is A) 1 only.

Statement 1 (correct): India consumes far more edible oil than it grows. Domestic oilseed output covers only about 40 to 45 per cent of demand, and the rest comes from imports, mainly palm oil from Indonesia and Malaysia, then soyabean oil from Argentina and Brazil, and sunflower oil from Russia and Ukraine. In the last five years before 2018, import volumes consistently exceeded domestic production.

Statement 2 (wrong): The government does impose customs duty on edible oils. The rates are notified through the Customs Tariff Act and have been revised several times, with crude and refined oils attracting different duties. Duty rates change, so check the current notification, but the premise that there is no duty at all is false.

Core concept: the edible oil gap is a classic example of import dependence, and duty is used as a tool to protect domestic oilseed farmers while keeping consumer prices in check. For Mains GS-3 (agriculture, food security, trade policy), this links to the National Mission on Edible Oils and the Oil Palm (NMEO-OP) scheme.

Trap: aspirants often assume that a government which wants self-reliance must ban or fully tax imports. Duty on edible oil has been adjusted repeatedly to balance farmer incomes against consumer inflation, so the statement that there is no duty at all is simply false.