The agriculture ministry today ruled out any shortage of onions this year and claimed that most states had adequate stocks of this commodity. The market arrivals of onions, too, were satisfactory, the ministry maintained. | |
| This follows a meeting convened by agriculture secretary Radha Singh to review the availability of onion in the country. There have been reports, especially from Maharashtra, of sharp rise in onion prices in the past couple of weeks. |
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| Extensive damage to the stored bulk of onions, due to excessive rains in Maharashtra has been cited as reason for the sharpe rise in prices. Nasik region in Maharashtra is the country's largest producer of onions, a politically sensitive commodity. |
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| The ministry, however, said the market arrivals of onions were adequate in most states, and these would be further augmented after the harvest of the kharif crop in the coming weeks. |
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| The Nasik-based National Horticultural Research and Development Foundation, the nodal agency for the production and the supply of onions, told the meeting that the onion arrivals in Delhi's Azadpur wholesale mandi in the first week of September were 69,510 quintals, as against only 42,100 quintals in the same period last year. |
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| In August this year, the arrivals were 3,07,810 quintals, as against 2,62,060 quintals in the same month last year. |
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| It pointed out that the onions that had arrived in the Maharashtra markets were of good quality. About 50 per cent of the stored onions were being held by farmers and traders. |
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| The ministry said the total production of onions in 2004-05 was around 59,42,5000 tonne. The stock was estimated at 18,10,000 tonne. |
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| Onion exports between April and August this year were estimated at around 2,76,038 tonne, as against 3,79,441 tonne in the same period last year. |
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| It also pointed out that fresh crop arrivals have begun since July from the Coimbatore region in Tamil Nadu and from the second fortnight of August from Chitraduga, Chilkheri and Vasadurga areas of Karnataka and Kurnool in Andhra Pradesh. |
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| Kharif onion supplies from Rajasthan were expected to begin from mid-October. The late onion crop of Maharashtra and Gujarat would hit the markets from November, it said. |
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