India's cooking oil manufacturers have sharply increased crude rice bran oil prices that has not only made the edible rice bran exports unviable but also left paddy farmers, particularly from Punjab and Haryana, high and dry. Solvent extractors, who buy rice husks from millers at a cheaper rate, have increased the price of extracts after the Centre hiked import duty on crude and refined edible oils – palm oil, soy oil, sunflower oil and rapeseed. The benefit of price hike is, however, limited to organized extractors and millers, but the same is not passed on to the farmers, industry experts said. The Centre had raised duties on certain crude edible oils earlier this year by 5-10%. The hike was aimed at curbing cheaper imports. Duties on crude rice bran oil, however, remained unchanged because of negligible import. 'The manufacturers, especially the solvent extractors, have increased the crude rice bran oil prices by Rs 8-10 per kg arbitrarily, without any provocation and it will adversely impact exports,' Sangrur based Ricela Group chairman AR Sharma said. Rice bran oil is produced from rice chaff, an oily layer between the paddy husk and the rice grain. Its extraction involves a long chain where farmers sell paddy to rice millers. Millers sell the chaff to solvent extractors make huge profit from the by-product, experts said. The sudden price hike by the extractors will make Indian experts of the rice bran oil non-competitive in the international market, exporters said. They have been demanding a 5% incentive under the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS) for the rice bran oil. Thailand is India's major competitor in the export market for this product. India exported 9,500 tonnes of rice bran oil in 2017-18. Out of this, Punjab's share was over 6,500 tonnes. India is the second biggest exporter of rice bran oil after Thailand. There are over 200 rice bran oil units, including more than 100 in Punjab and Haryana. Currently, the total installed capacity of rice bran oil is around 1 million tone per annum. About 30% of that is located in Punjab and Haryana. 'We are going to have meeting with the Centre to discuss issues such as MEIS to oil sector and export to China,' said BV Mehta, executive director, Solvent Extractor Association of India. India is the world's second larger producer of rice and it is the most important cereal food crop in the country. India's cooking oil manufacturers have sharply increased crude rice bran oil prices that has not only made the edible rice bran exports unviable but also left paddy farmers, particularly from Punjab and Haryana, high and dry. Solvent extractors, who buy rice husks from millers at a cheaper