Onions cheaper in Nashik as APMC cuts out middlemen

Plans to extend this to Mumbai and Pune; prices fall 17%.

At a time when the government has failed to control spiralling onion prices, the Lasalgaon Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) has come up with a solution to address the issue. It has decided to sell onions directly to consumers on a ‘no profit no loss basis’.

“Our main aim is to make people and the government know that (only) mediators are getting the real advantage of this price rise and not farmers,” Jaydatta Holkar, chairman, Lasalgaon APMC, told Business Standard.

The Lasalgaon APMC today sold 80 quintals of onions directly to consumers at Rs 25 a kg in Gangapur area of Nashik city. The APMC will expand its distribution network to other parts of the city from tomorrow.

“We have undertaken this project to make onions available at a minimum rate on a ‘no profit no loss basis’. Onions purchased from farmers will be sold directly to consumers from mobile vans in Nashik city.”

“Tomorrow, we are planning to sell around 150-200 quintals of onions in various parts of the city using mobile vans. We are also planning to launch the same project in Mumbai and Pune, if we get good response from the consumers here,” he said.

Meanwhile, the average wholesale price of onion in several other APMC markets in Nashik district has come down by around 17 per cent to Rs 2,500 a quintal in the last two days following the arrival of new crop. Around 11,000 quintals of onion were sold today at Lasalgaon APMC.

In Nashik’s retail markets good quality onions were sold at Rs 35 and the poor quality at Rs 15-20 a kg, against Rs 50 and Rs 25-30 a kg, respectively on January 10.

The average wholesale price of onions are expected to come doen to Rs 2,000 a quintal in the next fortnight, market sources told Business Standard.

The average wholesale price of onion in Pimpalgaon APMC, another major onion market, fell from Rs 2,751 a quintal yesterday to Rs 2,400 a quintal todayday. Around 11,200 quintals of onion were sold at the APMC.