``We have asked manufacturers of branded edible oils if a reduction in the mark up between the wholesale price and maximum retail price (MRP) is possible at the moment,'' secretary, sugar and edible oils, RP Sinha told PTI.

Sinha chaired a meeting of representatives of leading branded edible oil manufacturers, including HLL, ITC-Agrotech, Amit Foods and SM Dychem here yesterday to solicit their views on the reported move of these companies to hike prices.

Sinha said the mark- up between the wholesale and retail prices had increased as prices had shown sharp increase during the first two weeks of August.

Concerned over the rise in edible oil prices, cabinet secretary Prabhat Kumar, who heads the high- powered committee on price monitoring had convened a meeting ofmanufacturers to assess their views on the price front, official sources said.

Though the industry has shown the break-up of cost in packaging the products and argued that they were not operating with high profit margins, government advised the companies against effecting an immediate price hike.

The secretary also clarified that there was no proposal to reduce import duty on edible oils from the current level of 16.5 per cent as the commodity was availability in ample measure to meet increase in demand during festive season.

Sinha said any hike in prices effected by premium edible oil manufacturers would trigger off similar reaction by smaller players in the market.

``There is a tendency among smaller players to follow suit of major players' decision to hike price,'' he said.

The branded edible oil segment meets only about 5 to 7 per cent of the total edible requirements in the country.

The secretary said all bottlenecks in shipping of edible oils contracted by both the State Trading Corporationand private traders have been cleared to facilitate their early arrivals.

``The availability of edible oils in the market at the moment is satisfactory and a large quantity of imports on the state account and by private traders are on the pipeline,'' he said.

The domestic prices of edible oils have been witnessing steady increase in the recent past following rise in international prices, especially of palmolein.

Major price increases have been witnessed in case of groundnut oil, sunflower, palmolein and vanaspati, with groundnut prices rising to Rs 4,400 per 15 kg from Rs 3,400 a month ago.