Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) senior leader and Leader of Opposition Harpal Singh Cheema on Monday said India should rethink its dependency on edible oils on other countries.

“India imports such a large amount of edible oils when our country is perfectly capable of producing it on its own if only Union governments and state governments were serious about making India self-dependent in this sector,” Cheema said. He emphasised that in a real sense only self-dependency in the agro sector can make India ‘atmanirbhar’ (self-dependent).

The AAP leader said that India imports 1,371 million dollars worth of sunflower oil (cooking oil) from Ukraine every year and this demand can be easily met if only Punjab’s two districts start farming sunflowers.

Cheema said that people don’t diversify the crops and produce oilseeds due to lack of proper marketing and no MSP (minimum support price) on crops. He said imagine spending 1,371 million dollars on sunflower farming here in our country instead of spending it to import cooking oil.

The AAP leader said today our dependency on other countries is directly proportional to the incompetence of Congress and BJP governments.

Cheema said the export-import deficiency of India in the agriculture sector can be solved with solid policies and agro-based industries since India is an agriculture dominant country. He said India can become a surplus country in agro-based products if marketing and MSP, of other crops along with wheat and rice, can be ensured.

He added that Punjab has a high potential to fulfill our country’s demand for edible oils and governments should incentivise farmers to grow more oilseeds.

Cheema asked why after the green revolution India’s farming sector has not seen any other revolution that can sustain India’s self-dependency in the agriculture sector and improve the financial condition of India as well as its farmers.

He said that Congress-BJP governments lacked vision and intention when it comes to the agriculture sector that is why even after being an agriculture dominant country. “Today India is dependent on other countries for agro-based products when it should be the opposite,” Cheema said.

He added, in India including Punjab, the need of the hour is visionary and solid policies for the agriculture sector, pro-development and pro-farmers government, and agro-based and food processing industries so that our state and our country can move forward and grow in the right direction and at the same time can become self-dependent in as many sectors as possible.