Onions turn pungent for consumers

​Hyderabad: After tomatoes, now it’s time for the onions to test the patience of consumers. The prices of onions sky-rocketed to three-fold from Rs 10 to Rs 30 in the wholesale market since July. But the price of one kg onions in the retail market is varying between Rs 40 to Rs 50 on Saturday.

While speaking to The Hans India over phone, Jayachandra, director, Jayachandra Food Products Company, Nasik said that most of the onion crop was washed way in Gujarat due to recent rains. ``Following the farmers strike in Madhya Pradesh, the State government had procured around 2 lakh metric tonnes of the commodity.

Due to unscientific method of storing onions, around 1.5 lakh metric tonnes spoiled in the rains. Finally, Maharashtra is the only State to supply onions to other states. With this demand of onions, the price has soared to Rs 35 in wholesale market,” he said. According to another trader, Amol Palekar from Nasik, `The export orders of onions had started from Bangladesh, Dubai and Qatar.

This export orders also one of the reasons which had contributed to increase in the price.’ He has said that now the price is totally high it would continue for next two months. R Surya Prakash, a trader at Malakpet market said, ` the increase of onion prices would continue till October because onions would start coming from Kurnool and Karnataka State only in October. ``

The main problem in getting onions from Maharashtra is transport cost. The price of onion in wholesale is Rs 26 but the transporters charge Rs 2 per kg to transport to Hyderabad and with other expenses, it becomes around Rs 34 in wholesale market,” he said.

Reacting on the price hike of onions, Mahalakshmi, a house wife from Ramnagar said that in July they brought onions at Rs 15 per kg and they consume 10 Kgs per month.

``In retail market onions are sold at Rs 40 today which means a burden Rs 250 on our budget per month. The sudden increase of price would be burden for middle class family like us as onions are essential in daily cooking,” she said.

Speaking to The Hans India G Lakshmi Bai, Director of Agriculture, Marketing said, ``We knew the onion prices are increasing for the last two days and no decision had been taken to control it. Price would go up but not to the extent of the exaggeration. We would look into this matter.”