HYDERABAD (Commodity Online): It is perhaps quite unfortunate for some commodity prices to northwards close to elections which turn out to be unfavourable for the ruling party either at the Centre or in the states.
It may be recalled that high domestic prices of onions have always been a politically sensitive issue — it toppled the BJP-led governments of Delhi and Rajasthan around 11 years back and will be a key factor in the upcoming Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh.
Even as the Union Government is trying all means to keep pulses and edible oil prices under check through imports and increased domestic availability, a new concern has emerged—skyrocketing onion prices. This time though it is not the traders or government policy to blame, but unexpected flash floods in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka.
Nashik-based National Horticulture Research and Development Foundation has said that heavy rains followed by floods have severely damaged kharif onion crop in Kurnool (Andhra Pradesh), Hubli, Dharward, Bijapur (Karnataka) and Satara districts of Maharashtra
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The retail prices of onion have doubled during last one week across the country. The retail prices in Delhi has gone up to around Rs 30-Rs 35 per kg, from around Rs 14 to Rs 15 a few weeks back.
“In total around 13,000 hectares of land were covered under early kharif growing onion in Andhra Pradesh and preliminary reports suggest that more than 70% of the onion growing areas have been impacted by floods.
According to a forecast of NHRDC made in September, “a total of about 25 lakh tones onions were stored during the year 2009, which is similar to previous year’s storage. Major storage has been done in Maharashtra , which was around 15-20% more compared to last year. Less storage in Gujarat has almost been compensated by Maharashtra state. Since the storage of onion during the current year is almost same as that of last year, therefore availability of onion during the off season i.e. July to October for domestic as well as export requirement will be the same as that of last year. Till September 2009 around 65-70% stored stock would be over and rest will continue till November 2009.”
Market analysts had pointed out that despite the dry spell in Rajasthan and other onion producing regions, the supply seemed to be quite adequate for the year until the floods have crashed the hopes. Deficient monsoon has already impacted Kharif sowing of onion in Western and Southern parts of the country.
In Nasik , the hub of country’s onion trade, wholesale prices have jumped from Rs 1,300-Rs 1,400 per quintal, from around Rs 700 to Rs 750 per quintal just a week back, mainly due to floods in southern India . In Delhi , wholesale price of onion has risen sharply from Rs 878 per quintal last week to Rs 1,347 per quintal on Tuesday.
NHRDC has pointed out that Maharasthra a leading producer of onion suffers from inadequate post-harvest facilities leading to crop losses. Only the variety grown in rabi season is capable of storage as it has higher TSS, dry matter and outer drier intact scales.
Lasalgaon market in Maharashtra is considered to be Asia’s biggest onion market where about 2.5 lakh tonnes of onion are handled and NHRDC has established a training centre to demonstrate to farmers better harvest and post-harvest crop management practices.
