Onion ships coming next week, Amit Shah told

NEW DELHI: Union home minister Amit Shah on Thursday chaired a meeting of ministers to discuss onion prices, on a day when its rate crossed the Rs 150-mark in several places in West Bengal. Shah, commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal and agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar, were briefed by consumer affairs secretary Avinash Srivastava on the steps taken by the government to curb prices.

Srivastava gave a brief on the demand and supply situation and plans for distribution of onions from producing centres to consumption centres.

“The government has, so far, contracted import of over 21,000 tonnes out of the 1.2 lakh tonnes approved by the Cabinet. It is in the process of floating a tender for another 15,000 tonnes. Onions will start being shipped in from second week of December,” a senior consumer affairs official said.


Cabinet secretary Rajeev Gauba and adviser to the Prime Minister PK Sinha were also present. Earlier, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman informed Parliament that the government has taken steps to rein in onion prices and has initiated steps to improve technology for its better storage.

On Thursday, opposition parties staged a protest over the rising onion prices in the Parliament premises.