Telangana introduces licence, MRP for onion sellers

When onion prices shoot up, state governments usually rope in their civil supplies department to procure the commodity and sell at a subsidised price.

Going a step further, the Telangana government has decided that those who want to sell onion will have to first get a licence for it. Also, the government will fix a maximum retail price for the commodity, beyond which it can't be sold in the open market.

The government on Friday issued a special order - the Telangana Onions Dealers (Licensing, Storage and Regulation) Order, 2016 - to this effect.

While the state government currently uses its powers to check the hoarding of essential commodities such as rice and dal, it has never tried to regulate the open market price of such commodities directly. In this context, the new order on onion has broken a new ground.

"Price fixation shall be done keeping in view the minimum support price for the commodities communicated by the central government during the respective crop year," said Rajat Kumar, commissioner and ex-officio principal secretary, department of civil supplies, Telangana government, stated in the order.

According to the order, each licencee should keep a stock quantity between 30 quintals and 75 quintals at his or her disposal depending on the category of area. The government would charge a fee of ~2,000 for a wholesale licence, Rs 1,000 for a retail licence and Rs 3,000 for issuing a composite licence allowing both wholesale and retail sale of onion.