First lot of 300 tonnes of imported onion lands

New lot will be released in mandis on Monday

After a year of sufficiency, India has again turned a big importer of onion. Around 300 tonnes (15 container loads) is set to hit Mumbai’s retail market on Monday.

Imported from Egypt and China, the quarantine issue has been cleared. Importers have obtained the necessary permission for  release into the market.

“Around 15 containers (20 tonnes each) are ready for release. The commodity may hit spot mandis on Monday. With this, the price may moderate,” said R P Gupta, director of the National Horticultural Research and Development Foundation (NHRDF).

Traders have received permission to import 24,000 tonnes this year to meet rising consumer demand. “This is the first imported consignment. Some more are in the pipeline. Accumulatively, we have received government’s permission to import 24,000 tonnes this year,” Gupta added.

India had imported huge quantities from Pakistan in 2011. In 2012, there was no need felt to import. This year, India has become a net importer despite adequate supply from domestic sources.

“There is no shortage of onion from domestic sources. Barring a supply disruption from Andhra Pradesh, there is no logic in its price going up. Supply of the new season crop has been sufficient from Karnataka. In fact, the Bangalore market receives at least 40,000 tonnes daily. The new season crop has started hitting spot mandis in the south recently, which is expected to spread across all markets within a few days. Once the demand pressure from the south eases, coupled with imported commodity hitting markets in and around Mumbai, the price will cool down,” said Gupta.

Last week, the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation had floated a tender to import onion from Pakistan, China, Iran and Egypt. PEC Ltd had floated a tender to import 300,000 tonnes of onion early last week. Private players are also keen to import the commodity to meet domestic demand.

According to trade sources, the landed cost of imported onion works out to Rs 34-35 a kg against the current prevailing price in the benchmark Lasalgaon market at Rs 45 a kg and Mumbai at Rs 48 a kg. Onion prices have surged over 10 per cent in the past week.

“Even at Rs 34-35 a kg of imported onion, traders will get some profit as the release from domestic stockists has been very slow. The bottom line is, consumers that have been habituated to cough up Rs 50-60 a kg for onion just to add flavour to vegetables, will have to continue paying this price or even higher for some more time,” said a trader.

Nashik-based NHRDF estimated the area under onion crop down by 10 per cent this year from 1.087 million hectares last year.

Meanwhile, onion exports from India fell sharply by 81 per cent to 29,247 tonnes in August, compared to the year-ago period, after the government imposed curbs on the overseas sale. India, the second largest producer of onion in the world after China, is estimated to have harvested 16.6 million tonnes of the staple vegetable last year. The total realisation from 182,000 tonnes of onion exports stood at Rs 2,294 crore in 2012.