The price of onions has doubled in the past week, from Rs 30-35 per kg to Rs 60-90 per kg. The government is selling onions at a discounted price of Rs 25 per kg from its buffer stock. To do this, the government has set up onion sale stalls in more than 170 cities and 685 centres.
Also Read: Why Onion Price Is High In India & When Will Rates Go Down?
The government has taken a number of steps to control onion prices, including releasing onions from its buffer stock and increasing imports.
Onion from the buffer stock has been disposed continuously since the second week of August in major consumption centres all over the country, and also supplied to retail consumers at Rs 25 per kg through mobile vans operated by NCCF and NAFED.
The Centre has recently announced that it would procure an additional 2 lakh tonnes of onion for the buffer, over and above the 5 lakh tonnes already procured.
An official statement issued on Saturday said that the step to impose Minimum Export Price (MEP) will help in maintaining sufficient availability of onion to domestic consumers at affordable prices as the quantity of stored Rabi 2023 onion is declining.
Locations
Onions at discounted prices are available through mobile vans at 71 locations in Delhi-NCR, Jaipur (22), Ludhiana (12), Varanasi (10), Rohtak (6), and Srinagar (5). The retail sale of discounted onions via mobile vans is also underway in Bhopal, Indore, Bhubaneswar, Hyderabad, and Bangalore.
Onion continued to be costly in the national capital as the average retail price remained at Rs 78 per kilogram even as the wholesale prices in the key supplying state of Maharashtra started cooling down after the imposition of export curbs.
The all-India average retail onion prices increased by Rs 3.40 per kg to Rs 53.75 per kg on Tuesday, according to the official data.
Onion prices in the national capital started inching up from October 25 when the rates were at Rs 40 per kg, which doubled to Rs 80 per kg on October 29.
Prices, however, fell marginally to Rs 78 per kg on October 30 and remained at the same level on Tuesday as well, the data from the consumer affairs ministry showed.
At present, the average retail onion prices are ruling at the highest level in Delhi compared to other states and union territories.
The second highest increase in the prices was in Goa and Puducherry where the average retail price was at Rs 72 per kg on Tuesday.
In other states, the retail prices were ruling in the range of Rs 41-69 per kg.
Reasons for high price
According to official sources, prices in both wholesale and retail markets across the country have shot up purely due to speculation despite 15-20 lakh tonnes of rabi crop stock available in Maharasthra that is sufficient to meet the demand for a month.
A likely fall in fresh kharif output and two weeks’ delay in arrival cannot be the sole reason for the sudden spike in onion prices. There is enough old crop stock to meet the domestic demand and even the government has maintained 5 lakh tonnes of buffer stock, the sources said.
Further, the sources said the imposition of minimum export price on onion on October 29 at USD 800 per tonne till December-end is helping in cooling down prices, especially in Maharasthra, where prices fell 4-10 per cent on October 30.
The kharif crop has started arriving in small quantities in mandis but in bigger quantities will start coming from the second week of November from key growing states of Karnataka, Maharasthra, and Andhra Pradesh.
Till the new crop hits the market, the government will release buffer stock to increase the availability and check price rise. So far, 1.8 lakh tonnes of onion have been released in the market.
The country has exported about 15 lakh tonnes of onion till October 20 of this fiscal. Total onion exports stood at 25 lakh tonnes in the 2022-23 fiscal, as per the official data.
Onion is grown in three seasons- kharif, late kharif and rabi. It is only rabi onion which is stored as the variety grown in this season has a longer shelf life.
On Saturday, the Centre imposed a MEP of USD 800 per tonne on onion exports till December 31 to boost availability of the vegetable in the domestic market. The USD 800 per tonne MEP translates into about Rs 67 per kg.
The MEP is there for all varieties of onion except Bangalore Rose and Krishnapuram onions, and for cut, sliced or broken in powder forms.
The government has said that it is working to bring down onion prices and that it will continue to release onions from its buffer stock if needed.
(With PTI inputs)
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