Price of Onions is 22.36% lower than that of the last year: Centre

The government has been able to keep the price of onion under control this year. Onion prices often skyrocket due to various reasons and consumers have to bear the brunt of it.

Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution has said that the all-India average retail price of Onion as on 17.02.2022 was Rs.35.28/kg which is 22.36% lower than that of the last year.

According to the government, this was made possible after effective price control mechanism and maintaining a good onion buffer.

“Late Kharif onion arrivals are steady and expected to remain till Rabi arrival from March, 2022. The prices of Onion remained substantially stable during 2021-22 due to effective market intervention through Price Stabilisation Fund (PSF). Onion buffer of 2.08 LMT built in current year under the Price Stabilisation Fund (PSF) has been released in a calibrated and targeted manner to States/Cities where prices are increasing over the previous month and also to source markets such as Lasalgaon and Pimplegaon to augment the availability in these key mandis,” The Ministry said.

It added, “Further, States/UTs had been offered Onion at Rs.21/kg ex-storage locations and Safal had also been supplied @Rs.`26/kg inclusive of transportation cost. The aggressive releases of onion from the buffer have contributed to stability in prices.”

Similarly, the government said that prices of other vegetables such as Potato and Tomato also remained lower as compared to the previous month.

“Similarly, the retail prices of Potato as on 17.2.2022 was Rs.20.58/kg, 6.96% lower than last month. Potato sowing has been delayed in southern part of West Bengal due to cyclone Jawad, however, the State reported that crop area has recovered almost to the level of last year. The total crop area for 2021-22 is estimated to be comparable with that of last year,” the Ministry said.