Six of the 16 wholesale mandis here have been shut for onion trading after a sudden steep fall in prices to ₹11/kg, the district administration said on Friday.

The average wholesale price of onion in Nashik, which was ruling at ₹20/kg early this month, has now declined to ₹11/kg, according to official data.

Wholesale rates in other onion markets in Maharashtra have also fallen. In Lasalgaon, Asian’s biggest wholesale market for onion, rates were ruling at ₹15/kg today.

“We have closed trading in six mandis since yesterday and they will open on Monday. Ten other mandis are open. The mandis are closed due to sudden onion price fall,” Deputy District Registrar of Cooperative Society Nilkanth Kare told PTI.

Onion prices started falling sharply since Thursday. “The exact reasons are still not known. It is believed the prices fell on reports of income-tax raids on onion traders and also because of rise in onion imports,” he said.

On a daily basis, onion arrival in mandis is about 20,000 tonnes. Onion prices had touched the peak of ₹25/kg a few weeks ago, and have now come down to ₹10-11/kg, he added.

Last year’s crop

Kare mentioned that the onion being sold in Nashik mandis are of stored ones of last year’s crop. The new kharif crop is yet to arrive.

The cooperative society regulates wholesale mandis in the district.

It may be noted that wholesale onion prices in Maharashtra, the biggest growing State in the country, had shot up sharply in the past month due to speculation over a shortfall despite the fact that the new crop is expected to be good.

This speculation had pushed up the retail price in most parts of the country.

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