Arrival of imported onions brings down wholesale prices by Rs 10/kg

With the arrival of imported onions in the wholesale market, prices of the kitchen staple today came down by Rs 10 but retail prices continued to remain high at Rs 70-80 per kg.

According to traders, around 25 trucks carrying 1,500-2,000 quintals of onions have arrived at the Azadpur Mandi.

“With the additional arrival of onions from Afghanistan prices today fell by Rs 10 per kg to Rs 50 per kg in the wholesale market,” the Onion Merchant Traders’ Association President Surendra Budhiraj said.

Mother Dairy outlets in the city, which are selling onions at around Rs 60 per kg, are contemplating reducing prices from tomorrow after the fall in prices at the wholesale market, an official said.

Prices of the kitchen staple have fallen a day after the Government hiked the minimum export price (MEP) of onions to $900 per tonne.

MEP is a benchmark price below which onion cannot be exported.

Traders also attributed the fall in wholesale onion prices to a decline in prices of the bulb in the Lasalgaon Mandi in Nashik, which sets the price trend across the country.

According to data from the National Horticultural Research and Development Foundation (NHRDF), prices of the politically sensitive commodity at Lasalgaon in Nashik decreased by Rs 10 per kg to Rs 47 per kg today.

Earlier this week, Food Minister K. V. Thomas said the arrival of onions was good. “Our calculation is that prices will come down by the month-end or early next month.”

The Wholesale Price Index (WPI) based inflation had risen for the third straight month to 6.1 per cent in August driven by a whopping 244.62 per cent jump in onion prices on an annual basis.

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