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Onion prices skyrocket
After tomato which tested patience of people with consistent high prices till recently, it is now the turn of onion to bring tears to consumers as price of this staple vegetable more than doubled in less than a week.
Hyderabad: After tomato which tested patience of people with consistent high prices till recently, it is now the turn of onion to bring tears to consumers as price of this staple vegetable more than doubled in less than a week.
Traders fear that prices will go up further in coming weeks as supplies to major markets in Telangana have been dwindling day after day due to fall in crop yield and increasing demand in other markets. Consumers and grocery store owners told The Hans India that price of onions shot up from Rs 10-15 to Rs 40 a kg within matter of a week.
Shocked by the sudden spurt in the price, people are buying lesser quantities of the vegetable these day. “Till recently, we avoided eating tomato because its price hit Rs 100 a kg. Now, the price of onion is haunting us. Normally, I buy 5 kgs of onions whenever I come to market.
But after the abnormal rise in the price, I am forced to cut down the use of onion. I bought just one kg this time,” Venkatalaxmi, a home maker from Kothapet, told The Hans India.
Angry at the way price of onion is going up, Sunitha, another homemaker, said: “We consume less onions until the price comes back to normal level. We have no other option”.
But it is very unlikely that onion prices will come down anytime soon as an official at the Agricultural Market Committee in Malakpet said prices are bound to go up further due to steep fall in supplies.
J Ananthaiah, selection grade secretary, Agricultural Market Committee at Malakpet, said: “Generally, we get onions from Maharashtra, Rayalaseema and Mahbubnagar. The supply dropped by over 40 per cent in recent days.
On regular days, our market receives more than 60 truckloads of onions a day. During the last 10 days, supplies are dwindling down. On Friday, we received just 38 trucks, including 29 from Maharashtra and nine from Telangana districts.”
According to reports, onion crop was damaged in Kurnool in Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra to some extent. Adding to this, with attractive prices in Maharashtra and other states, farmers prefer to sell onions in those markets rather than coming to Hyderabad.
“These two factors are the major reasons why prices are suddenly shooting up,” said Venkat Reddy, an official at the Agricultural Market Committee. According to another official, the prevailing wholesale price at the market is Rs 2,800 per quintal.
“Local season is set to begin from September and last till November. During local season, we get mostly from Mahbubnagar and Kurnool. During off-season, i.e. from November to June, we get stocks from Maharashtra as it accounts for 75 per cent of total arrivals here. The price rise will continue until the local season begins from November,” he explained.
Farmers in Aurangabad, Nashik and Ahmednagar in Maharashtra, Kolar in Karnataka, and Kurnool in AP bring onions to Malakpet regularly. Onion procurement in Malakpet market is estimated to be Rs 2 crore per day. Each truck carries 10 to 15 tonne load of onion.
Gadwal and Mahbubnagar are major onion producing districts in Telangana.
