Bihar has not sent its requirement of Onion to Centre

At times when onion prices continue to surge all across the country and states are looking forward to Centre's intervention to deal with the crisis, the Bihar has not sent its requirement for the onion to the centre, according to the official of Bihar State Cooperative Marketing Union Limited (Biscomaun).

"Centre has asked every state for onion requirements but Bihar government has not sent any reply on requirements," said Sunil Singh Biscouman, Chairman.

Secretary, Department of Consumer Affairs had written to the Chief Secretaries of the States on November 23, requesting them to make available their demands for the onion to NAFED at the earliest.

Amidst surging onion prices, the international trading company MMTC has placed another import order of four thousand tonnes of onion from Turkey which is expected to arrive in India by January in 2020.

This would be in addition to over 17,000 tonnes of onions that have already been contracted from Egypt and Turkey.

The Department of Consumer Affairs has directed MMTC to issue three more tenders for import of onions, out of which two tenders are country-specific namely Turkey and the European Union and one is a global tender. Each of these tenders is for 5,000 MT.

On December 3, the Union government had revised stock holding limits on onions to 25 tonnes on wholesalers and five tonnes on retailers.

Importers will be exempted from these stock limits for imported stock.

Meanwhile, the onion price in many parts of the country including Patna and Kanpur has plunged to Rs 100 and Rs 120 per kilogram with consumers urging the governments to implement urgent measures to curb hike in price.