MORANG, Jan 23: The cooking oil industries in the Morang-Sunsari industrial corridor are in crisis due to the overflow of palm oil-mixed imported cooking oil in the market.
The Nepali oil industries are closing one after the other due to this as the Nepali products cannot stand in competition with the spurious cooking oil that is imported from the Indian border town Jogbani.
Nepal exports cooking oil worth Rs 12 bn
Shrawan Agrawal, a cooking oil mill proprietor, said that nearly 24 oil mills in the corridor have shut down and those in operation are also not producing in their full capacity.
Currently, five oil mills are in operation in the Sunsari-Morang corridor. Cooking oil of various brands that are smuggled into the country from the Indian towns have been putting the Nepali cooking oil industries in crisis.
The smuggled oil which is bottled in tin cans is a mixture of substandard oil and is cheaper by Rs 50 per litre in the local market, Agrawal said. RSS
