Onion price to fall further as fresh import expected next week

NEW DELHI: The government on Monday said 600 tonnes of imported onions are likely to arrive next week at Mumbai port and help ease high prices, even as retail rates softened to Rs 60-70 a kg in the National Capital.

The Centre also expects that a likely bumper production in the ongoing kharif season would boost domestic supply and further ease onion prices.

"It is expected that there would be a higher production of onion in the kharif season across the country which will ease the pressure on onion prices. There is a likelihood of arrivals of around 600 tonnes of imported onion at Mumbai within the next week, which will further increase supply," an official statement said.

The Agriculture Ministry said co-operative major NAFED held a meeting in Mumbai with importers to resolve issues like phyto-sanitary while clearing imported stock of onion arriving at Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, Mumbai..

The meeting covered exhaustively all ground problems being faced by importers and majority of the issues were resolved to the satisfaction of all stakeholders, a statement by the Agriculture Ministry said.

The meeting, chaired by the NAFED's Managing Director Sanjeev Chopra, was attended by leading onion exporters, importers and senior officials of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India.

Arrivals of new crop at Bangalore wholesale market have increased by 50 per cent to 76,266 quintals today from the last week's level, according to NHRDF data.

Imports from Afghanistan have started pouring in from last week, bring down prices, traders said.

"Supplies have improved as the new crops from Bangalore mandi is coming in to the Azadpur mandi, which has brought the prices down by Rs 10 per kg to Rs 45-50 per kg," Onion Merchant Traders Association President Surendra Budhiraj said.