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The Solvent Extractors’ Association (SEA) of India has stressed the need to impose more measures to check the excessive speculative activity in the soyabean futures.
In a letter to the members of SEA of India, Atul Chaturvedi, President of the association, said that SEA was flooded with complaints from its members that the soyabean contract on the commodity exchange was witnessing an unnatural price run due to technical reasons and alleged price rigging by speculators.
This was resulting in soya arrivals drying up in market yards affecting soya crushers and the poultry industry.
“As a responsible association wanting orderly development of our markets, we were compelled to write to SEBI and the concerned exchange to look into the issue and take whatever action is required for bringing sanity in our markets and also to ensure the contracts remain alive and vibrant,” he said.
Following strong representations from SEA as well as other associations, SEBI has imposed an additional margin of 3 per cent on buyers and sellers with effect from April 22. “This intervention is not sufficient to cool the markets, and we feel additional measures are required to check excessive speculative activity which has the potential to kill the contract,” he said.
Mustard crop
Highlighting the need for the Government to focus on oilseed mission, Chaturvedi said the recent surge in the prices of mustard would galvanise the decision-makers to launch the much-delayed oilseed mission.
By all counts this year’s mustard crop seems to be in excess of 90 lakh tonnes, he said, adding: “Had it not been for mustard our oil import bill would have shot up and definitely impacted our supply chain. The icing on the cake for our mustard farmers is that they are earning fantastic returns from their crop and suddenly agriculture has become a worthwhile profession.”
This hike in oilseed prices has the potential of not only increasing country’s production in coming years but also help in improving rural prosperity, he said.
On the issues related to faceless assessments of ‘Bills of Entry’, he said the importers of edible oils are facing hindrances ever since the new system was implemented by CBIC, delaying clearance. Stating that this delay has the potential to impact the smooth operation of the edible oil supply chain, he said in the current scenario when edible oil markets are experiencing a massive bull run it can add fuel to fire.
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