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New Delhi, Dec 9 () The Centre on Monday further reduced the stock holding limit for onion to 2 tonnes from 5 tonnes for retail traders as part of efforts to check hoarding and boost domestic supply of the kitchen staple.
 In a statement, the Consumer Affairs Ministry directed the state governments to undertake anti-hoarding operation with immediate effect on retail traders.
 Last week, the ministry had reduced the stock holding limit for retailers to 5 tonnes from 10 tonnes while that on wholesalers to 25 tonnes from 50 tonnes as onion prices were ruling high up to Rs 150 per kg.
 With retail prices failing to cool down, the ministry has further reduced the stock limits on retailers to 2 tonnes from the existing level of 5 tonnes with immediate effect, the statement added.
 Retail onion prices have risen in the past two months due to short supply owing to fall in production of kharif (summer) crop after heavy rains.
 As per the ministry's data, maximum retail prices are ruling at Rs 165 per kg on Monday, while modal price was at Rs 100 per kg. In most cities, onions are quoted over Rs 100 per kg in retail markets, pinching hard on consumers' pocket.
 The government has taken several measures to improve the supply of onion across the country and check price rise. Besides banning export, the government is boosting the supply through various modes including through sale of buffer stock onions at a subsidised rates and imports.
 State-run MMTC has been asked to import about 1 lakh tonnes of onions and the agency has already contracted over 21,000 tonnes and the shipment is expected to arrive mid-January.
 Experts are of the view that onion prices will remain firm till the first week of January when the late kharif onions will start hitting the market. LUX MR
MR

Govt further caps stock limit on onion retailers to 2 tons to check hoarding

In a bid to contain <keyword id="2928960" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="price-rise-of-onions">price rise of onions</keyword>, the Indian Government extended the ban on holding its stock beyond permissible limit by one year. 
 The <keyword id="120170" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="Cabinet-Committee-on-Economic-Affairs">Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs</keyword> (CCEA), headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, took the decision, which empowers states to impose stock limits on traders for holding onion and ban hoarding beyond the set limit. 
 
"The CCEA today approved the stock holding limit order on onion by another year. This will enable state governments take effective de-hoarding measures under the Essential Commodities Act (ECA), 1955," sources told news agency PTI. 
 
The direction comes in wake of rising prices of onions in wholesale and retail markets. The prices are increasing due to sluggish supply of good quality onions. 
 
Also, to curb spike in onion prices in upcoming days due to supply shortage, the government has already increased the minimum export price of the commodity to $425 per tonne and is also planning to import some quantities of onions to boost domestic availability, reported PTI. 
 
Apart from onions, pulses, edible oils, oilseeds, rice and paddy also come under the ambit of stock holding limits order. 
 
As per the data provided by the Government, India's onion production is estimated to have declined to 189.23 lakh tonnes in the 2014-15 crop year, as against 194 lakh tonnes in the previous year. 
 
(Image: Indiatimes)

Ban on hoarding onions beyond ceiling extended by one year

New Delhi, Dec 5 () As onion prices continue to rule high at above Rs 100/kg in most cities, Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday reviewed progress made in the import of key kitchen staple to boost domestic supplies and check spiralling prices.
 Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal and Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar were among the ministers who attended the meeting. Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan could not attend the meeting due to health reasons, officials said.
 Cabinet Secretary Rajeev Gauba, Advisor to Prime Minister P K Sinha and Consumer Affairs Secretary Avinash Srivastava were also present in the meeting, the officials added.
 The home minister reviewed the progress made in the decisions taken in the last meeting with respect to facilitating speedy import of onion that would help improve availability and cool prices.
 The consumer affairs secretary, who made a presentation on the onion price situation in the meeting, informed that state-run MMTC has contracted import of over 21,000 tonnes of onion from Egypt and Turkey and the shipments are expected to arrive by mid-January.
 The secretary said that tendering and fumigation norms have been eased to facilitate early arrival of the imported onions. MMTC has been directed to issue two country specifics tenders and one global tender for 5,000 tonnes each, the sources said.
 He also apprised that stock holding limits on retailers and wholesalers have been reduced further to 5 tonnes and 25 tonnes, respectively, to check hoarding. Already, onion exports have been banned and supplies are being improved through buffer stock as well, the sources added.
 Onion prices have been ruling high for past few weeks due to fall in production of the Kharif production due to unseasonal rainfall in the key growing states, including Maharashtra. LUX ACB MR

Amit Shah holds meet on onion prices

India has produced a record harvest but many farmers in the <keyword id="50894" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Onion">onion</keyword> bowl of Maharashtra have lost a huge share of their crop due to damage in storage. 
 Unseasonal weather, <keyword id="19390" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Hoarding">hoarding</keyword> and price manipulation have caused dramatic price rise in the past. The new government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is anxious to prevent a repetition of the same. 
 
Supply deficiencies make the government's task of battling weak growth and inflation even tougher. It also highlights the irony of high food costs in India, which is the world's biggest fruit and vegetable producer after China. 
 Finance Minister <keyword id="42575" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Arun-Jaitley">Arun Jaitley</keyword>'s budget on Thursday will have to tackle these issues as he while steering away from populist measures such as food and fuel subsidies. Importing onions would be the only effective way to curb soaring prices, agriculture experts say, but similar steps in the past have failed to ease supplies. 
 
"The only solution is imports, but that can't be done overnight," said RP Gupta, director at the National Horticultural Research and Development Foundation. 
 
Prices are unlikely to come down before December. Sowing of the new season crop has been delayed due to the scorching heat and less rainfall, blunting the affect of measures taken by the government to get supplies to market and keeping prices in check. 
 
The consumption of onions in the country is 15 million tonnes a year.

India Faces Onion Shortage Despite Record Harvest

New Delhi, Dec 12 () The Centre on Thursday said it has contracted to import an additional 12,660 tonnes of onions and the shipment will reach India from December 27 onwards, a move aimed at improving the domestic supply and check price rise.
With this, the total quantity of imports that have been contracted so far reached approximately 30,000 tonnes, an official statement said.
For the second week in a row, onion prices are ruling above the Rs 100 per kg mark, as government efforts to cool the rates seem to be taking more time than expected.
In a statement, the Consumer Affairs Ministry said it has directed state-owned trading agency MMTC to issue fresh tenders for additional 15,000 tonnes of onions (three new tenders of 5,000 tonne each) on Thursday.
Last month, Union Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan attributed the rise in prices to a 26 per cent decline in domestic production during kharif and late-kharif seasons because of late monsoon followed by excess rains in major producing states such as Maharashtra and Karnataka.
The minister has been maintaining that the government has taken all possible steps to rein in prices such as imposing a ban on exports and allowing imports of 1.2 lakh tonnes to boost supply.
The Centre has also put restrictions on quantities of onions to be stocked by retailers and wholesalers.
On Monday, the Centre further reduced the stock holding limit for onion to 2 tonnes from 5 tonnes for retail traders.
Last week, the ministry had reduced the stock holding limit on wholesalers to 25 tonnes from 50 tonnes.
The ministry had also directed state governments to carry out immediate anti-hoarding operations to ensure the supplies in the markets are augmented and stock holding limits are strictly enforced. LUX LUX
BAL

Govt contracts import of additional 12,660 tonnes of onions

New Delhi, Dec 2 () The Centre on Monday asked state governments to crackdown on traders hoarding onions, create buffer stocks and distribute imported edible bulb at a reasonable rate in order to provide relief to common man from soaring prices.
 Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba chaired a meeting of the Committee of Secretaries to review the issue of rising onion prices across the country, an official statement said.
 Onions are selling at a high price of Rs 75-100 per kg in major cities.
 In a video conference with the Chief Secretaries of 11 major onion producing states, Gauba was briefed about the various steps being taken by them to control onion prices.
 Chief Secretaries of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana participated in the video conference.
 "The Cabinet Secretary directed the states that the overall availability of onions has to be beefed up, considering the temporary shortage, to stabilise the prices," the statement said.
 The Centre has already banned onion exports and decided to import 1.2 lakh tonnes of onions, besides imposing stock holding limit on traders.
 "The states were further directed to maintain considerable buffer stocks, impose stock limits on traders and to ensure strict action against hoarding," the statement said.
 Gauba said the central government has approved the import of 11,000 tonnes of onions to tide over the situation. The deliveries are expected from the last week of December. 
 This is in addition to import of 6,090 tonnes of onions from Egypt whose deliveries are expected from second week of December.
 "Cabinet Secretary directed the states to utilise their Food and Civil Supply Departments to procure and distribute onions at reasonable prices," the statement said.
 Secretaries of Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Ministry of Agriculture and Food &amp; Public Distribution also attended the meeting.
 On Sunday, sources had said that state-owned trading firm MMTC, which is importing onion on behalf of the Centre, has placed an order of 11,000 tonnes of edible bulb from Turkey.
 According to Consumer Affairs Ministry's data, onion's average selling price on Monday is Rs 80 per kg, while the maximum rate is Rs 140 per kg in Port Blair.
 Onion is being sold at Rs 76 per kg in the national capital, Rs 87 in Mumbai, Rs 90 per kg in Kolkata and Rs 80 per kg in Chennai. 
 The lowest price of Rs 40 per kg was reported from Jhansi in Madhya Pradesh, the data showed.
 The ministry monitors prices of 22 essential commodities based on the data collected from 109 market centres spread across the country.
 On November 19, Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan had said onion production in kharif and late-kharif seasons of 2019-20 is estimated to fall 26 per cent to 5.2 million tonnes.
 Onion is a seasonal crop with harvesting period of rabi (March to June), kharif (October to December) and late-kharif (January-March). During July to October, the supply in the market comes from stored onions from rabi (winter-sown) season.
 During 2019-20, there was a 3-4 weeks delay in sowing as well as decline in sown area of the kharif onion because of late arrival of monsoon, Paswan had said. 
 Further, untimely prolonged rains in major growing states of Karnataka, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh during the harvesting period caused damage to the standing crops in these regions.
 "It's not in our hand, the government is making maximum efforts but who can win from nature," he recently told reporters when asked by when onion prices will come down to reasonable level. MJH RVK

Centre asks states to act against onion hoarders, create buffer stocks

After missing out the all-time favorite noodles <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Maggi+">Maggi </a>in our menu, it’s the king of the kitchen, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=onion">onion</a>, which makes us cry now. With soaring prices of onion, sellers are now finding newer ways to woo the customers. And the best they can think of is to sell this key ingredient to prepare Indian meals at a lesser price. 
 
As per an Economic Times report, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=online+grocery">online grocery stores</a> like <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Localbanya">Localbanya</a>, MeraGrocer, <keyword id="3020147" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Freshfalsabzi">Freshfalsabzi</keyword>.com and <keyword id="2817480" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="GrocerMax">GrocerMax</keyword> are offering onions at Rs 40-69 per kilogram against Rs 80 or more per kg in the retail market. 
 
If experts are to be believed, these online platforms are able to sell onions at such a low price because they’ve cut-out the middlemen. 
 <keyword id="2047523" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="LocalBanya">Localbanya</keyword> CEO Karan Mehrotra cleared the air by saying that they could make it because of a mix marketing strategy and procurement. He said, "We do take a hit on margins at times for the benefit of customers.” 
 
The eCommerce platform, which is partly inventory-led, also uses just-in-time procurement, thus gets very good deals at times and it passes on the benefits to the customers. Localbanya started a grocery subscription plan this week. 
 
Another Delhi-based online fruits and vegetable retailer FreshFalSabzi too is selling onions at Rs 40 per kg. "We are selling onions at a loss but have reduced marketing spends, including spends on local ads and sponsorships," said Rajesh Gupta, chairman of the RSND Group-promoted FreshFalSabzi, which has hired TV actress Sakshi Tanwar to promote the site. The e-tailer gets vegetables directly from farms and is selling them on a no-profit-no-loss model at least for now, said Gupta. 
 
The price rise is not just limited to onions. After unseasonal rains hit the country this year, prices of other essential fruits and vegetables like potato, brinjal, radish and carrot are also going up in the markets. On the other hand, the online prices are said to be at least 10% cheaper. 
 
In a similar move, Gurgaon-based online store MeraGrocer ran a 30% discount promotion from Wednesday to Sunday and it offered onions for Rs 42 per kg. The company has extended the campaign to this week as well, but this time only for vegetables. 
 
"The whole campaign was around the concept of cheaper than wholesale price. Cheaper than Azadpur mandi," said Saurabh Chadha, co-founder of MeraGrocer. The company has also decided to offer daily discount deals, he added. 
 The online grocers, as per the industry insiders, aren’t making money and are running short of money as most of them have already spent a lot on marketing and promotions. A recent report by researcher Kantar Worldpanel, eCommerce for fast-moving consumer goods (<keyword id="34523" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="fmcg">FMCG</keyword>) will increase 47% to $53 billion by 2016, up from $36 billion in 2014. 
 
As per K Radhakrishnan, co-founder Grocermax.com, "We have driven the selling price down to Rs 69.50 per kg for 45-55 mm diameter onions, whereas similar quality is selling at Rs 80 to 85 (in the open market). Customers are sometimes unaware that traders mix small-sized onions which they end up buying." 
 Fresh FalSabzi.com's Gupta said, the minimum order value is Rs 249 and it doesn't sell more than 2 kg of onions to a customer on a given day to prevent hoarding. "For other vegetables, we ensure at least 10% discount compared to the retail price elsewhere," he said. Some sites engage in cross-subsidies. The founder of one <keyword id="1640900" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Online-grocery">online grocery</keyword> said prices of lemon, beetroot and lettuce have been raised to keep onion rates down. 
 
<a href="http://www.chilloutpoint.com/images/2010/05/naughty-mischievous-baby-boys/naughty-mischievous-baby-boys-11.jpg">Image source</a>

Now, you can buy Onions at Rs 40 per kg at the most unlikely market place

The Centre intends to amend the <keyword id="95281" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Essential-Commodities-Act">Essential Commodities Act</keyword> and Prevention of <keyword id="6735185" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Black-Marketing">Black Marketing</keyword> and Maintenance of Supplies of Essential Commodities Act to curb hoarding and black marketing of essential commodities. 
 “The Essential Commodities Act will be made more stringent by making offences under the Act non-bailable. We have been waiting for the response of the State governments to the proposal since their consent is required to amend the Act,” Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution <keyword id="973" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="Ram-Vilas-Paswan">Ram Vilas Paswan</keyword> said. 
 
Paswan also said that his ministry has asked the state governments to give their views on the proposed amendments to the Agriculture Produce Market Committees (APMC) Act. Perishable commodities like fruits and vegetables will not come under the ambit of the APMC Act. The amendment will enable farmers to sell their product directly to retailers or consumers, without any involvement of middlemen. 
 
The minister also emphasised on the need to set up scientific storehouses, particularly for items like onion and potatoes, to control food inflation. 
 Paswan further said that only two states – Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh – have fully implemented the National <keyword id="73138" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Food-Security-Act">Food Security Act</keyword>.

Centre Mulling To Amend Laws To Check
Hoarding, Black Marketing

<div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image on-image">AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh</div></div>
NITIN JAIN is the big man in Lasalgaon, a dusty town a day's drive from Mumbai that boasts it has Asia's biggest onion market. With a trim moustache and a smartphone stuck to his ear he struts past a thousand-odd tractors and trucks laden with red <keyword id="6470164" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="onions">onions</keyword>. Farmers hurl armfuls at his feet to prove their quality. A gaggle of auctioneers, rival traders and scribes follow him, squabbling and yanking each other's hair. Asked why onion prices have risen so much, Mr Jain relays the question to the market. "Why?" he bellows. His entourage laughs. He says that the price of India's favourite vegetable is a mystery that no calculation can explain.
High food prices perturb some men and women even bigger than Mr Jain. Raghuram Rajan, the boss of India's central bank, is grappling with high inflation caused in large part by food prices: wholesale onion prices soared by 278% in the year to October and the retail price of all vegetables shot up by 46%. The food supply chain is decades out of date and cannot keep up with booming demand. India's rulers are watching the cost of food closely, too, ahead of an election due by May. Electoral folklore says that pricey onions are deadly for incumbent governments.
A year ago it seemed that India had bitten the bullet by permitting foreign firms to own majority stakes in domestic supermarkets. The decision came after a fierce political battle. <keyword id="80487" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="walmart">Walmart</keyword>, Carrefour and Tesco have been waiting for years to invest in India. They say they would revolutionise shopping. Only 2-3% of groceries are bought in formal stores, with most people reliant on local markets. They would also modernise logistics chains, either by investing themselves, or indirectly, by stimulating food producers to spend on factories, warehouses and trucks, and establish direct contracts with farmers, eliminating layers of middlemen.
On the ground little has happened. Foreign firms complain of hellish fine print, including a stipulation to buy from tiny suppliers. Individual Indian states can opt out of the policy--which is unhelpful if you want to build a national supermarket chain. In October Walmart terminated its joint venture with Bharti, an Indian group. India has reduced the beast of Bentonville to a state of bewilderment. Tesco has cut expatriate staff.
The reaction from politicians has been indifference. "We have liberalised...to the extent that we can. People have to accept this and decide whether they want to invest," said Palaniappan Chidambaram, India's finance minister. Despite the apparently obvious benefits of supermarkets and the experience of most other countries, few Indians seem to want change.
<h3>You're not in Bentonville anymore</h3>
Just how bad is India's food supply chain? To find out <keyword id="425741" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="The-Economist">The Economist</keyword> followed the journey of an onion from a field in the heart of onion country, in western India, to a shopping bag in Mumbai, a city of 18m onion-munchers. The trip suggests an industry begging for investment and reform.
"The system hasn't changed much--it's been the same since the 1970s," says Punjaram Devkar, an elderly farmer in a white cap. For generations his forefathers have grown onions near a hamlet called Karanjgaon. He owns a crudely irrigated six-hectare (14-acre) plot, larger than the national average farm of just 1.2 hectares. He does not want to buy more land; unreliable electricity and labour mean "it is too hard to manage." There are four onion crops each year--in a good season production is three times higher than in a bad one. To hedge his bets he also grows sugar cane. Costs have soared because of rising rural wages, which have doubled in three years. He says welfare schemes have made workers lazy. "They just play cards all day."
Storage facilities amount to a wooden basket inside a shed--at this time of year onions perish within 15 days, although the variety grown in the spring can last eight months. From here one of Mr Devkar's finest is thrown into a small trailer, along with the produce of nearby farms, and taken to Lasalgaon. The roads are mostly paved but the 32km (19-mile) journey takes a couple of hours in a rickety old tractor.
Lasalgaon neophytes will find their eyes water upon entering its market, a huge car park full of red onions, trucks and skinny farmers. Although the auction is run twice daily by an official body, it doesn't look wholly transparent. Some farmers complain that Mr Jain and another trader dominate the trade (Mr Jain denies this). Prices vary wildly day by day and according to size and quality, which are judged in a split second by eye. The average price today is $0.33 per kilo.
Neither traders nor farmers agree why prices have risen so steeply of late. They blame climate change, the media, too much rain last year, too little rain this year, labour costs, an erratic export regime. "Our biggest problem is illiteracy," says one farmer. "We don't know how to use technology." Most folk agree that India needs better cold storage but worry that it is too pricey or that it ruins the taste of onions.
Farmers must pay a 1% fee to the auction house and a 4% commission to the traders. Sometimes they also have to stump up for fees for packing and loading. That takes place at several depots surrounding the market where farmers must drop off their loads and pour them onto tarpaulins on the ground. The onions may wait there for days but once put into hessian sacks they are loaded onto trucks operated by separate haulage firms and owned by intricate webs of independent consortiums.
At 8pm Prabhakar Vishad, a 20-year veteran of the onion-express highway from Lasalgaon to Mumbai, climbs into a battered Tata truck with "Blow Horn" painted in big letters on the back. Over the years the roads have improved and power steering has made life easier. Still, it is dangerous work, says Mr Vishad, who had a bad crash last year. By 6am next morning he sets his bloodshot eyes on Vashi market on the outskirts of Mumbai. It handles 100-150 truckloads of onions a day--enough to satisfy India's commercial capital.
Onions are sometimes unpacked, sorted and repacked, with wastage rates of up to 20%. By 9am the market is a teeming maze of 300-odd selling agents, who mainly act on behalf of middlemen, and several thousand buyers--who are either retailers or sub-distributors. Everyone stands ankle deep in onions of every size. The bidding process is opaque. The selling agents each drape a towel on their arm. To make a bid you stick your hand under the towel and grip their hand, with secret clenches denoting different prices. Average prices today are about $0.54 per kilo. If the seller likes your tickles you hail a porter. He carries your newly bought sacks on his head to a dispatch depot where another group of couriers takes them into the city.
"I'm crazy, like the guys you see in the movies. I don't negotiate," declares Sanjay Pingle. One of the market's biggest agents, he charges the seller a 6.5% commission. The buyers pay loading charges on top of that and a fee to the market. He says business is tough--bad debts from customers run at a fifth of sales and he has to pay interest rates of 22% on his own debts. The solution to the onion shortage is obvious, he says. "In China they keep things in storage facilities--if India had the same facilities as China has, prices would be lower." He says he has seen photographs of Chinese technology on his mobile phone.
By the afternoon thousands of cars and trucks are picking up small batches of onions to take them into Mumbai. In Chembur, a middle-class neighbourhood, Anburaj Madar runs a big sub-distributor. He handles 200 sacks a day which he sells to retailers and restaurants. He buys daily from Vashi market and has space to store only about 12 hours' worth of stock. Rent is dear and he too reckons cold storage destroys the flavour of onions. He marks up his prices by perhaps 20% but says a chunk of what he buys has to be thrown away--it is either damaged or of inferior quality.
For the onions that do make the cut the next stop is a small shop down the road where they are sold for another mark-up of 10% or so. From here Indubai Kakdi is hand-selecting onions with elaborate care. Buck-toothed and ragged, she sells seven kilos a day from a wooden barrow; she makes a 10% margin. She says climate change has made prices more volatile.
<h3>Peeling back the layers of truth</h3>
The journey of an onion from Mr Devkar's field to the end customer in Mumbai takes only a few days but is enough to make you weep. There are some underlying reasons why prices have risen--higher rural wages have pushed up farmers' costs. But the system is horribly fiddly. Farms are tiny with no economies of scale. The supply chain involves up to five middlemen. The onion is loaded, sorted or repacked at least four times. Wastage rates, either from damage or weight loss as onions dry out, are a third or more. Because India has no modern food-processing industry, low-quality onions that could be turned into paste or sauces are thrown away. Retail prices are about double what farmers receive, although the lack of any standard grading of size or quality makes comparisons hard.
The system is volatile as well as inefficient. Traders who buy onions from farmers may hoard them, but for the supply chain as a whole far too little inventory is stored. As a result small variations in demand and supply are amplified and cause violent swings in price. In the first week of December 2013 prices fell again.
It is easy to see how heavy investment by supermarket chains and big food-producers--whether Indian or foreign--could make a difference. They would cut out layers from the supply chain, build modern storage facilities and probably prod farmers to consolidate their plots.
The shoppers of Chembur agree that Indian onions are the world's tastiest but are fed up with price swings. No one mentions reform as a solution and until there is popular support and political leadership it is hard to see much changing. And what of the last stage of the onion's odyssey, to the stomach? By one stall stands an elderly lady who says she likes the vegetable so much that she doesn't bother to cook it. Instead she chomps on raw onions as if they were apples. At least someone has an eye on efficiency.
Click <a href="https://subscriptions.economist.com/nwcd">here</a> to subscribe to The Economist

The Route Of An Onion Shows Why India Needs Walmart, Carrefour, And Tesco

<div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image on-image">Reuters/Rupak De Chowdhuri</div></div><keyword id="3658" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="India">India</keyword>'s ruling Congress government has accused traders of cheating consumers as it struggles to reduce the cost of the vegetable known as the "poor man's food" ahead of a string of state polls.
The price of <keyword id="6470164" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="onions">onions</keyword>, a staple in Indian cooking, have gone through the roof in the past few months, quadrupling to as much as 100 rupees a kilogram ($1.65) in parts of the country and turning the vegetable into an unaffordable luxury for the poor.
Traders are "cheating consumers," Food Minister K.V. Thomas said in remarks aired Saturday, appealing for onions to be sold at "affordable rates".
They "should not loot consumers", he added.
The politically sensitive rise in the price of onions comes ahead of five regional assembly polls in November and December, seen as a dress rehearsal for general elections due by May 2014.
The Congress-led government has been struggling to curb imports to counter a record current account deficit, the broadest measure of trade.
But such is its alarm as the state elections near that it plans to import import thousands of tonnes of onions to reduce prices.
India is the world's second-biggest onion grower after China and normally exports onions, but it has floated a tender to import onions to check the spiral in prices.
The state-run National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED) "is interested in importing onions of Pakistan, Iran, China and Egypt origin", the co-operative said in the tender issued earlier in the week.
NAFED expects to take a decision on the onion tender next Tuesday, Thomas said.
But supplies from abroad may take weeks to arrive, commodity experts say.
The ruling Congress party fears a backlash from the "aam admi" or "common man", its main voter-support base.
"The sky-high prices of onions have given the opposition a potent weapon to attack the government with," commented the Hindustan Times newspaper recently.
Costly onions have a history of political fallout, with the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) being ousted in 1998 Delhi state polls after surging onion prices soured the voter mood.
In January 1980, the late Congress leader Indira Gandhi rode back to power on the back of rising onion prices, waving huge strings of them at campaign rallies and saying that a government has no right to govern if it cannot control onion costs.
The latest onion price rise has also come in the middle of India's most important religious festival season, an occasion for multi-day feasts and family dinners.
"We always use onions in our cooking but they are something special for us now," Pinky Singh, a domestic servant, told <keyword id="68053" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="AFP">AFP</keyword>.
The government blames the steep price rise on middlemen who hoard onions, and extended rains in onion-growing areas that damaged crops.
<div class="nc_footer">
Copyright (2013) AFP. All rights reserved.
</div>

Indian Government Accuses Traders Of Cheating Consumers With Sky High Onion Prices

(Eds: Adding details) New Delhi, Mar 18 () The Centre is closely monitoring the prices of soaps, floor cleaners and thermal scanners because of surge in demand of these items amid growing coronavirus cases in the country, Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said on Wednesday. Normally, the Consumer Affairs Ministry keeps track of prices of 22 essential commodities. Recently, the ministry included face masks and hand sanitizers under the Essential Commodities Act. "We are monitoring prices of three more products -- soap, floor and hand cleaners like Lizol and Dettol as well as thermal scanners whose demand has gone up because of coronavirus scare," Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Minister Paswan told . The prices of these products will be monitored from 114 centres across the country. Paswan said the government will bring these three products under the Essential Commodities Act if their prices shoot up from the level which prevailed in the last six months. Hand sanitizers and face masks are now essential items, and stringent action will be taken against those hoarding and black marketing these products, he added. The minister said the government will monitor more products in the coming days if prices go up substantially. The 22 commodities which the government monitors includes five items groups -- food grains (rice, wheat, atta), pulses (gram, tur, urad, moong, masur), edible oils (groundnut oil, mustard oil, vanaspati, soya oil, sunflower oil, palm oil), vegetables (potato, onion, tomato) and other items (sugar, gur, milk, tea, salt). According to Paswan, there is high awareness about COVID-19 (coronavirus) outbreak among people, and the severity of outbreak in India is less as compared with other countries. "There is no need to panic, although we need to follow all precautionary measures to protect ourselves," he said. At Shastri Bhawan here, where Paswan's office is housed, the minister has installed hand sanitizer dispenser at entry and exit gates. Thermal scanning of visitors is also been done. LUX RVK

Govt monitoring prices of soaps, floor cleaners, thermal scanners, says Paswan

The central government took stock of the <keyword id="67286" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Food-inflation">food inflation</keyword> on Tuesday and decided to impose a minimum export price on onions, release more rice in the open market and crack down on hoarders. State governments have been advised to delist the trade of fruits and vegetables through the Agriculture Produce Market Committee, so that farmers can sell them in the open market at lesser prices. 
 “The situation is not alarming and the price rise is only marginal. We are acting to discourage hoarding (in anticipation of a deficit monsoon) and prevent middlemen from taking advantage of the spike,” said Finance Minister <keyword id="42575" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Arun-Jaitley">Arun Jaitley</keyword>. He said this while talking to the Press after a meeting with Agriculture Minister <keyword id="1081443" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Radha-Singh">Radha Singh</keyword> and Food and Consumer Affairs Minister <keyword id="973" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Ram-Vilas-Paswan">Ram Vilas Paswan</keyword>. 
 
Jaitley also said that the government is monitoring the prices of 22 food items and there has been some increase in the prices of onions, potatoes and some pulses. 
 
The government has imposed a minimum export price (MEP) of $300 per tonne on onions while the Commerce Ministry will announce an MEP for potatoes. State governments will be given a line of credit to import pulses, if required. The Food Corporation of India has been directed to release five million tonnes of rice in the open market.

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