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Journalism of Courage
Worried over the unexpected spurt in onion prices,the Prime Ministers Office has shot off letters to the Ministries of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs,asking them to take all necessary steps to check rates.
The Prime Minister desires that all necessary steps (be taken to) effectively deal with the extraordinary price rise of onions and bring the prices down to an affordable level, the PMOs letter reportedly tells the Ministries. They have been told to do daily monitoring of the situation given the huge mismatch between wholesale and retail prices.
Differences of opinion between the Ministries on the issue were visible during an inter-ministerial meeting on cotton exports this evening,chaired by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and including Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar,Commerce Minister Anand Sharma and Textile Minister Dayanidhi Maran.
While Pawar blamed unseasonal rain for the disruption in supply,which had adversely impacted the crop,Sharma felt there was enough stock of onions in the country and hoarding was the prime culprit. Pawar also rejected proposals to import onions to offset the problem.
Because of heavy rain in the Nashik area,a substantial quantity of onion has been damaged. Our expectation is that with the arrival of the crop from Uttar Pradesh,Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh in the next two-three weeks,prices will come down, Pawar told reporters.
Sanjeev Chopra,Managing Director of Nafed,the cooperative
major dealing in onions,also says there was little damage to the crop and hoped that the ban on exports would ease domestic supply to bring the prices down in the next few days.
While the unseasonal rains may be one factor,the export permits issued in November may have also fuelled the upward jump in onion prices.
Export permits,in the form of No Objection Certificates (NOCs),issued for November were over 35 per cent more than the numbers issued in October,despite clear warnings of cyclonic rains in October-end and erratic rainfall in November in onion-producing states,by the National Horticultural Research and Development Foundation (NHRDF). The figure for November,in fact,was 60 per cent more than the number of export permits issued in November last year.
However,the cumulative onion export till November this fiscal (11,58,698 metric tonnes) has been lower by about 16 per cent compared to last year.
In fact,the NHRDF had also pointed out that onion arrivals in 15 major mandis between November and the middle of this month had dropped 35 per cent compared to last year.
The kharif onion crop condition has been affected in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka due to cyclonic rains in the end of October 2010,and in other states like Maharashtra,Gujarat,MP and Rajasthan,crop was affected due to untimely and erratic rains during November 2010, the NHRDF had pointed out in its crop outlook.
It had also pointed out that unseasonal rains could damage early planted kharif crop in Maharashtra (30-35 per cent),Gujarat (40-50 per cent),Rajasthan (20-25 per cent),and Madhya Pradesh (30-40 per cent).
