NASHIK JANUARY 28: In a major setback to the State Government's plan to intervene in the market to provide relief to the farmers, ration shopkeepers here have refused to sell onions the government had purchased at higher than the market price. The government had intervened in the market to provide relief to farmers who had flooded the market with a bumper onion produce.Bluntly refusing to accede to the government's efforts, the Association of Ration Shopkeepers (ARS) in Nashik have pointing out that nobody would buy the commodity from their shops at higher than the market price.General secretary of ARS Mohammed Salim Haidar Ali stated that onions were available for Rs 2.50 per kilo in the open market in Nashik district while the government wanted the shopkeepers to buy the same commodity for Rs 3.55 per kilo from the government and sell it to the public for Rs 4.00 per kilo. He reiterated that the public would not buy onions for Rs 4 per kilo from fair price shops when the same was available for a lesser price in the open market.The district food and civil supplies officer, Ramesh Kale, said that the State Government's move to sell onions through the public distribution system (PDS) has been confined to cities like Mumbai only and it was not viable to do so in onion growing regions, where the market prices were lower than the government's prices. He admitted that the ration shopkeepers had had refused to do sell onions.Following a bumper harvest leading to an onion glut and crash in prices the State Government is buying the commodity at higher than the market price from 26 procurement centres.The government, through the Maharashtra State Cooperative Marketing Federation Ltd has bought 2.70 lakh quintals of onions from 14 centres in Nashik district since January 4. While the average wholesale price of onions ranges between Rs 170 to Rs 200 per quintal, the government is buying the same crop for Rs 300 (ordinary quality in sizes from 20 mm to 40 mm) and Rs 350 per quintal (export quality in sizes above 40 mm).The marketing federation has bought 1.75 lakh quintals of onions for Rs 300 per quintal and 95,000 quintals of onions for Rs 350 per quintal. The procurement includes 72,000 quintals from Chandwad and 35,550 quintals from Lasalgaon.Meanwhile, the government has failed to export the commodity since onions from Pakistan and China are sold cheaper at US $ 160 per tonne as against the price of Indian onions at US $ 205 per tonne. Further, the strike at the ports have further created problems for whatever little quantity was scheduled for export. According to an estimate about 2,000 tonnes of onions are rotting in the Mumbai port, pending shipment.
