Pulses, onion won't see price hike this year; have adequate stock: Govt

The all-India average retail price of onion has witnessed a significant decline of 28 per cent compared to last year

The Centre on Thursday exuded confidence that the prices of pulses and onions — the two main commodities which seasonally show a spike with the advent of winter — wouldn’t rise much this year, assuring it has adequate stocks in the event of a market intervention.

The government said the prices of tomatoes may remain volatile for some time since the commodity is highly perishable by nature and difficult to store or process. It has been showing a rising trend these past few months.

“The prices of pulses will not rise during the festival months,” Consumer Affairs Secretary Rohit Singh told reporters on Thursday.

He said if required, the Centre may even ask importers to release their port stocks of imported pulses within 30 days to speed up availability.

India annually consumes around 27-28 million tonnes (mt) of pulses, while domestic production is around 25 mt. The balance has to be imported.

He said the Centre has around 4.3 mt of pulses stock, which is among the highest in the past few years, of which around 88,000 tonnes have been liquidated through a scheme that allocates legumes at a discount of Rs 8 per kilogram from the issue price.

Pulses can then be sold through various programmes by state governments.

In the case of onions, the government has stocks of around 250,000 tonnes, of which around 54,000 tonnes have been liquidated in a calibrated manner in states where price increase has been witnessed in the past few months.

Although late rains have impacted the kharif onion crop, the government is confident of tiding over any unusual increase in prices around November and December on the back of good stocks, said Singh.

Onions are harvested thrice a year.

The kharif harvest starts from October-November, which is followed by late kharif in January and March, and then the rabi harvest in March to May. Rabi is the biggest onion crop, which is also storable.

“In the upcoming season for onions, the government is exploring the possibility of using irradiation technology to increase the shelf life of onions, which can then be implemented on a public-private partnership mode,” said Singh.

Irradiation as a technology has been popular since the past few years and has been found to increase the shelf life, but hasn’t been extensively used so far in the country.

“Every year, around 25 per cent of the country’s onion production — valued at around Rs 11,000 crore — goes waste since the crop can’t be stored for more than six months,” said Singh.

The government said that the all-India average retail prices of major pulses have been fairly stable since the start of the year, except for normal seasonal price increases.

The all-India average prices of gram dal and masoor dal have declined slightly over the past month, whereas the all-India average prices of tur dal, urad dal, and moong dal have been stable, with marginal increase over the same period.

The all-India average retail price of onions has witnessed a significant decline of 28 per cent, compared with last year.

Meanwhile, in a related development, the consumer affairs secretary said the government is starting an extensive campaign over the next few weeks to bring down the pendency of cases in various consumer courts across India.

Of the pending cases, complaints related to the banking services are among the highest.