With the Union government refusing to play Santa Claus and regulate market forces, the merciless rise in onion prices threatens to mar Christmas, New Year and Makar Sankrantri festivities.
With several markets reporting a further rise in prices to about Rs.85 a kg, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh intervened, by directing the Ministries of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs to take steps to bring its prices to affordable levels.
According to sources, the Prime Minister, in his letter, wanted the two Ministries to monitor the situation on a day-to-day basis to bring the prices of onions down. However, the fact was that the common man would not get to sport a smile for at least three more weeks. This was underlined by Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar who declared that the prices of onions would continue to scorch the kitchens as of now.
He ruled out any intervention through imports and expressed his dependence on the next batch of arrivals of onions, which continued to command a stiff price of Rs.70 plus a kg, without any let-up in retail markets of Delhi and other cities.
The Agriculture Minister said that onion prices would remain high for at least the next two to three weeks. He attributed the rise in prices of onions to unseasonal rains in Nasik in Maharashtra damaging onions on a major scale, and said that the prices would come down when the bulbs arrive from Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh in the next two to three weeks.
Asked if the government intended importing onions to meet the demand and bring its prices down, Mr. Pawar said that there was no such proposal under consideration as of date.
He, however, hoped that the government's action of suspending exports till January 15 and doubling export price would help reduce the prices of onion.
On the other hand, Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee described the rise in onion prices as unfortunate and said that he would be talking to ministries concerned to ensure adequate supply of onions in the market.
Stressing on the mismatch in demand and supply, Mr. Mukherjee hoped that appropriate steps would be taken to remove the bottlenecks to bring the prices down.
The Union Agriculture Ministry claimed that wholesale prices of onions in Nasik in Maharashtra and Azadpur market declined by 35 per cent and 13 percent respectively on Tuesday, following the decision of the Price Fixation Advisory Committee to voluntarily suspend issuance of no-objection certificates for export of onion.
Communist Party of India MP Gurudas Dasgupta said that the rise in prices of essential food items and that of onion was due to excessive liberalisation of the market without any required safeguard, excessive export, forward trading and stockpiling, with generous bank advances and hoarding by unscrupulous manipulators of the market.
