State loses Rs 175 crore in onion procurement

He further said that 1.85 lakh quintals of onions lying at Yeola procurement centre and 1.13 lakh quintals lying at Sinnar centre would be converted to organic manure by a private firm from Nagpur, Opel Agro-Tech. The firm would pay Re 1 per quintal to the government for the rotten onions. After converting the commodity into manure the firm would sell the manure itself.

The remaining 2.5 lakh quintals of rotten onions would be dumped in ghats, soon. Gajbhiye said the onions would be dumped only after spraying them with germicides. He pointed out that the losses were incurred as the onions were bought at higher than the market prices and the overheads led to losses.

Giving an example of consignments sent from Nashik to Kanpur he pointed out that the overheads were to the tune of Rs 130 for a quintal of onions bought at Rs 350. He further stated that the onions which landed at Kanpur at the cost of Rs 480 per quintal could be sold only for Rs 250 per quintal and the Maharashtra State Cooperative Marketing Federation Ltd (which bought the onions on behalf of the State Government) could get only Rs 231 per quintal after discounting commission, handling etc at the landing point. He said that thus the federation lost Rs 249 per quintal.

It may be recalled that the government had initiated the market intervention scheme in January to provide relief to farmers. The bumper harvest had led to a glut and a consequent price crash upto Rs 200 per quintal. The government had then bought onions at Rs 300 and Rs 350 (export quality) per quintal, when the prevailing prices were below Rs 200 per quintal.