Govt orders raids across state to check for onion hoarding

State Agriculture Minister Eknath Khadse said, “The government has taken several measures to bring down the price of onions. The import of onions from Egypt was essentially to bridge the gap between suply and demand. It worked as prices came down by Rs 10 per kg in domestic market.”

However, he indicated, “ The cost of importing onions from Egypt proved expensive. The government centre -state has incurred almost double the cost for importing Egypt onions.”

Another decision was to dissaude the large scale hoarding of onions to create an artificial short supply that lead to spiralling of prices.

As Khadse said, “The raids have been ordered and would continue till the prices

stabilise. If any body is found hoariding onions action would be taken.”

While maintaining that people should not hesitate to pay a little extra for onions as it would help farmers, he said, “ What we need to check is if there is deliberate attempt to create a short supply.”

The consumption of onions in “Shravan and Chaturmas” (August and September) is always lower as a section of people fast and give up non-vegetarian food, he revealed.

While acknowledging that there are not many takers for Egypt onion as it doesnot match the flavour of local market, government has also tried to tap neighbouring states like Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. The short supply of onions in Maharashtra is also being attributed to poor rains to some extent.