No Pak onion by Wagah soon: Traders

No big relief is expected from Pakistan allowing exports of onion contracted before January 4 as no trader meets the payment criteria stipulated by Islamabad for importing the vegetable by land route, traders said today.

"As far as we know, none of the onion importer here (Amritsar) has made payment for the orders contracted before or on January 4, which is a condition stipulated by Pakistan in its notification allowing contracted onion export before the ban was imposed," Amritsar-based vegetable merchant Mukesh Sindhwani said.  

Pakistan, yesterday, allowed onion exports to India via land route, which were contracted before January 4 with a condition that payments for such orders should have already been made by Indian importers. 

"Pakistan has mentioned in its latest notification  That Indian importers should have made advanced payment for the contracted onion supply to Pakistani traders," pointed out another Amritsar-based vegetable trader Rajdeep Uppal.

According to traders, virtually no truck will cross over out of about 300 hundred trucks laden with onion and contracted before the imposition of ban even with the new notification issued by the Pakistan government.

Traders further noted that payment schedule for every transaction depend upon mutual understanding between importer and exporter.

"In normal circumstances, we make payment through banking channel to Pakistani exporters after getting the supply of commodity... Sometimes, it could be a weekly system or may be fortnightly," a trader disclosed.

After finding no solution to the problem with the latest notification, Pakistani traders have now sought from authorities to at least allow supply of those trucks for which documents with the customs department have been submitted.

"Onion exporters in Pakistan are demanding that those onion trucks should be allowed to cross over to Amritsar for documents with the customs department have already been deposited," said Uppal.  

A sudden ban imposed on export of onion via land route had hit traders of both the countries with almost 300 trucks containing 3,000 tonnes of the bulb getting stuck following the implementation of ban.

 Islamabad had imposed the ban on onion export to India via land route on January 5 to prevent any spiralling hike in bulb prices in its country.

Meanwhile, the Customs department at Amritsar said that it has not received any information regarding the latest announcement made by the Pakistan government with regard to release of onion orders contracted before ban.