By IANS
New Delhi : With spiralling onion prices bringing tears to the consumers, the government Tuesday banned export of the commodity for 15 days and hiked the minimum export price for pending tenders by $50 a tonne.
“We have decided not to issue any more no-objection certificates for at least 15 days,” said Alok Ranjan, managing director for National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation Of India (Nafed), the main agency for export of farm produce.
“We have already hiked the minimum export price by $50 a tonne. Now, crops from Nasik and Karnataka will start arriving in the market in full swing. This should ease prices in the coming two weeks,” Ranjan told IANS.
“In fact, our estimates suggest that the onion crops this year from both Maharashtra and Karnataka are better than last year. So, the supply side will be reinforced.”
Onion prices have soared in the past couple of weeks to Rs.30 a kg from under Rs.20 in the national capital, forcing the government to initiate steps to bring down the burden on consumers.
“We have also started selling onions at Rs.22-23 a kg in Delhi,” said Ranjan.
He said since the canalising agencies have decided not to issue any fresh no-objection certificates, exports from India should cease over the next five-six days.
The government had initiated similar steps in August, when the minimum export price was raised by $120 per tonne in two phases. This had resulted in exports dropping by almost 50 percent to 380,000 tonne over August last year.
Besides Nafed, which was incidentally established on Oct 2, 1958 to coincide with Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday, there are 12 other agencies notified by the government to export onions.
They decide on the minimum export price of onion every month.