A housewife, Sujatha, was patiently waiting in the serpentine queue at the Rythu Bazaar at Kothapatnam bus stand centre here. But before she gets the one kg of bulb vegetable, the stock got over leaving her disappointed.
“One kg of onion per family is too little to pull on for a week,” complained another fuming home-maker Prema working in a textile shop in the Bapuji Market complex here while waiting for her turn in the queue by producing the Aadhaar card as the price of the vegetable skyrocketed in the open market.
“The waiting is not worth it to buy at ₹25 per kg,” said another woman, Kamala, skipping purchase of the essential commodity, the price of which touched ₹90 per kg mark in the open market.
People need not come at one go to the Rythu Bazaars as 300 tonnes of the vegetable was allotted for supply at subsidised price, said Kothapatanam Rythu Bazaar Supervisor S. Amar while overseeing its sale.
Each day, about 10 tonnes of subsidised onion arrives in the three Rythu Bazaars in the city and one farmers’ market in Kandukur and get exhausted in no time. Excessive rainfall in the Kurnool region and Maharashtra had damaged the vegetable crop causing acute shortage.
“Rationing of onion supply will continue till such a time the availability improves, probably in the third week of January or so,” explained Agriculture Marketing Assistant Director K.V.N. Upendra Kumar in a conversation with The Hindu.
Farmers happy
Meanwhile, onion growers in and around Yerragondapalem made a killing as people came from far and near to purchase it as cooking is incomplete without its use for most of them. Whatever available stocks in Yerrongondapelm is grabbed by persons in the price range of ₹55 to ₹65 per kg. “'We do not have to take the trouble of moving onion to market now,” a group of happy farmers said.
Onion is grown in 274 hectares in Prakasam district as against the normal extent of 345 hectares during the khariff season and its cultivation has been taken up only in 19 hectares during the ongoing rabi season so far, sources in the Agriculture Department said.
The present situation does not warrant giving an additional one kg or so to each family as the arrival of onions to the Kurnool market was just 300 tonnes per day as against the normal 1,300 to 1,400 tonnes per day, the sources added.
Traders warned
Meanwhile, AMD officials warned of stringent action if wholesale traders were holding more than 50 tonnes of onion and if retail traders had onion stocks of more than 10 tonnes.
Public having information on any hoarding could get in touch either with AMD or Vigilance officials here. Their identity would be kept confidential, Mr. Upendra Kumar said.
