He said that this measure will stall dumping by some producer countries that has adversely affected the Indian farmers.

He said these countries resort to dumping by taking undue advantage of the low WTO bound-rate duty of 45 per cent for imported soyabean and rapeseed oils. All other oils attracted a higher import duty of upto 300 per cent.The minister said much of the soyabean oil coming from abroad was from genetically modified seeds.

He said the lower bound-rate duty for soyabean and rapeseed oils was responsible for upsetting the edible oil import structure, depressing the domestic market and impoverising the domestic oilseed producers.

Mr Kumar was speaking at a meeting of the members of parliament from the main coconut producing states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. About 30 MPs who attended the meeting pressed for imposing of higher import duty to stall cheap imports and giving a higher minimum support price (MSP) for copra and streamling of the procurement by the official agencies.

Allaying the apprehensions of the members, Mr Kumar said the MSP for copra for the coming year would not be delayed and declared before December 31.Referring to the member's demand for restricting the import of palmoil, he said that alone would not be of much help. The government has already raised the import duty on palmoil from 16.5 per cent to 25 per cent on November 21 while the duty on other oils were raised from 27.5 per cent to 35 per cent, he pointed out. Mr Kumar preferred to deal with the edible oil situation in its totality, in consultation with finance and commerce ministries.