Onions import from Pakistan, China to wipe tears

Mangalore Today/DHNS

New Delhi, August 16, 2013: With domestic onion prices soaring high, India is all set to import the kitchen staple from Pakistan and China and sell it at around Rs 35 per kg to consumers.

The imported onions are expected to be available for sale within a fortnight and would cost half the current retail rate of Rs 70-80 per kg.

 

The National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (Nafed) is tapping its reliable trading partners in Pakistan and China for purchasing onions. “We are not looking at tenders. We will buy it from the open market from our reliable trading sources,” Nafed Chairman Bijender Singh told Deccan Herald. He said onions were available in the markets of Pakistan and China at Rs 32-35 per kg and Nafed would make it available at the same rates to domestic consumers.

Singh said Nafed officials were negotiating the procurement rates and decide on the quantity to be imported once the rates are finalised. “We expect the orders to be placed by Monday or Tuesday and expect the consignments to arrive within a fortnight,” he said.
Currently, Pakistan allows trade of onions through the Karachi route and the vegetable would be cheaper for Indian traders if Islamabad opens up the Wagah-Attari route.
The Committee of Secretaries (CoS), at a meeting chaired by Union Cabinet Secretary Ajit Seth on Wednesday, had directed Nafed to import onions and offer them at best rates to domestic consumers.

As per the direction of the CoS, the cooperative major has already started selling onions through its five retail outlets and two mobile vans in the national capital.

Onion was available at Rs 45-50 in wholesale markets across the country depending on the quality. Onion prices are usually high in August given the depleting stocks and begin to slide once the kharif crop arrivals begin in September.

Owing to good monsoon, there has been timely sowing and a good kharif crop is expected, which may also help reduce prices.

Maharashtra and Karnataka produce 40 per cent of the onion in the country and the recent jump in the price was attributed to disruption of supply lines due to many reasons, including holidays around Eid festival.

It had also triggered hoarding by local suppliers in different parts of the country.
India has exported 6.39 lakh tonnes onion during April-July of this fiscal compared with 6.94 lakh tonnes during the same period last year. Onion production was 16.6 million tonnes in 2012-13.

Meanwhile, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) is monitoring the price fluctuation as an earlier study commissioned by it had suggested that cartels could be at play in the onion market and traders were hoarding to keep prices high.