More than 15 million tonnes of onions are consumed in the country per year. An important part of the Indian cuisine, its prices have gone up by more than 500 per cent since 2004. With five Assembly elections in a few months time, it could become a “big headache” for the UPA. Little wonder, the government is showing great alacrity in organising supply of 2,000 tonnes of onions from Afghanistan via Attari border over the next few days, to bring some relief in the prices of the tearjerker vegetable.
Rajdeep Uppal, chairman of CII Amritsar Zonal Council, and director, Narain Eximp Corporation said, “We are expecting 2,000 tonnes of onions from Afghanistan in the next few days, thus, the prices of this vegetable is expected to go down in the region. These onions are little bigger than the onions which are grown here and their flavour is better. These are also more red in colour than the onions grown here.”
Some truckloads, in fact, had come through last week. It is for the first time onions have come from Kabul. The food item import from the war-ravaged nation has till now been confined to dry fruits only.
“On Friday, around 12 truckloads of these onions came, while on Thursday, 17 truckloads had arrived each carrying 20 tonnes. These were packed in gunny bags with a capacity of 120 kg each, thus around 500 tonnes of onions arrived in two days,” Uppal added.
There are reasons for this sudden love for Kabuli onions. Wholesale Price Index had risen for the third straight month to 6.1 per cent in August, driven by a whopping 244.62 per cent jump in onion prices on an annual basis and vegetable prices have risen 77.18 per cent in one year. And, the option of importing it from the immediate neighbour, Pakistan, is not being explored given the current strain in relations.
Interestingly, Indian importers are getting Afghan onions under the Afghanistan Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA). The Pakistan Government had imposed a ban on onion export to India via Attari in 2011. These onions are orders of importers based in Delhi, Amritsar and Gujarat.
The first truck from Afghanistan had arrived at the Integrated Check Post at Attari on September 5. Three more truckloads of onion arrived on September 11. A Delhi-based importer, who had ordered the first consignment, had already got the permit to import 25,000 bags of onion from Kabul.
Food Minister K V Thomas, who asked onion-producing states to crack the whip on hoarders to little avail, had to give permission for private import of onion to ease the situation, not just for the hapless consumers but also for his fellow Congress leader, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit.
Dikshit who has to face a tough election in the coming months, is shedding tears over the rising onion prices. Ironically, it’s the onion crisis which had brought her to power in Delhi three terms ago. Then Delhi BJP CM Sushma Swaraj’s defeat was attributed to the issue of rising onion prices.
The joke doing the rounds in the Congress circles is that Dikshit will make Thomas cry, if the onion prices do not come down and it affects her political prospects. But the latest onion price crisis is not confined to Delhi alone—it’s a pan-India problem, Thomas admits. Despite India being the world’s second-largest producer of onions after China, it has the third-lowest yield per hectare among the 20 biggest producers.
Sources said that 27.5 lakh tonnes of onions was stored in the country for this year’s consumption and of this, 15.50 lakh tonnes were kept in godowns in Maharashtra, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
National Horticulture Research and Development Foundation (NHRDF) officials expect that in the next fortnight the higher availability in southern markets would bring down the price substantially. The retail price of onion in various parts of the country is around `80 per kg and might touch `90 per kg as it did in 2010 when the same crises hit the country. “We expect that import from Afghanistan will help in reducing the prices by `10 per kg,” said Uppal.
Gul Rahim, who is part of the three-member team of Afghan exporters which arrived at Attari border on Thursday, said, “For three months on regular basis we are sending onions to India without any problem. As the Indian government has helped rebuild Afghanistan we would be happy if we can be of any help.”
