The price of onion that was sold at ₹ 35 a kg at the Nethaji Daily Market has touched ₹ 60 a kg on Monday.
Onion is grown in Maharashtra and supplied across the country. However, due to severe floods there, cultivation of the crop has been completely hit, leading to drop in its arrival in the market.
Traders at the market said that usually about 90 to 110 tonnes of onion arrived every day at the market from Maharashtra. “But due to rain, the arrival of onion has dropped significantly leading to hike in price,” said Sugumar, a trader at the daily market.
He said the price was expected to go up further as the situation was likely to remain unchanged for the next few weeks.
Though small onion is sold at ₹ 35 kg, onion is commonly used in hotels, eateries and households as a main ingredient in food, leading to stable demand.
Since there was no alternative for onion, we had to purchase it, but can limit its usage, said V. Amutha of Moolapalayam.
As the price has started increasing, consumers urged officials to inspect the godowns here to prevent the traders from hoarding onion. Business is hit in hotels and small eateries too. “We can neither give plain omelette to our customers nor raise the price,” said M. Ayyappan, who runs a roadside eatery near bus stand.
While the traders believe that the price of onion will go up until normalcy returns in Maharashtra, the consumers want the government to take efforts so that the retail price does not touch ₹ 100 kg as in 2013.
Since the same situation has been prevailing every year during the rainy season, the consumers sought the government to import onion to control its price.
