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After a year of self sufficiency, India has turned a big importer of onion once again. Around 300 tonnes (15 container loads) onion is set to hit Mumbai’s retail market on Monday.
Imported from Egypt / China, the quarantine issue has already been cleared with the commodity is found fit for human consumption. Importers have already obtained necessary permission to release the commodity in the market.
“Around 15 containers (20 tonnes each) are ready for release. The commodity may hit spot mandis on Monday. With this the price may moderate,” said R P Gupta, Director of National Horticultural Research and Development Foundation (NHRDF).
Traders have received permission to import 24,000 tonnes of onion this year to meet rising consumers’ demand.
“This is the first imported consignment India has received. Some more are in the pipeline. Accumulatively, we have received government’s permission to import 24,000 tonnes this year,” Gupta added.
Prior to this, India had imported huge quantity of onion from Pakistan in 2011. In 2012, however, there was no need felt to import onion. But, this year again, India has become a net importer of onion despite adequate supply from domestic sources.
“There is no shortage of onion from domestic sources. Barring a supply disruption from Andhra Pradesh, there is no logic in its price going up. Supply of the new season crop has sufficient from Karnataka. In fact, Bangalore market receives a minimum 40,000 tonnes of onion daily. The new season crop has started hitting spot mandis in the south recently which is expected to spread across all markets within a few days. Once the demand pressure from the south eases coupled with imported commodity hitting markets in and around Mumbai, onion price will cool down, said Gupta.
National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Fedration (Nafed) had last week floated a tender to import onion from Pakistan, China, Iran and Egypt. Also, PEC Ltd had floated a tender to import 300,000 tonnes of onion early last week. Private players are also keen to import the commodity to meet domestic demand.
According to trade sources, the landed cost of imported onion works out to Rs 34-35 a kg as against the current prevailing price in the benchmark Lasalgaon market at Rs 45 a kg and Mumbai at Rs 48 a kg. Onion prices have surged over 10 per cent in the last one week.
“Even at Rs 34-35 a kg of imported onion, traders will get some profit as the release from domestic stockists has been very slow. The bottomline is consumers that have been habituated to cough up Rs 50-60 a kg for onion just to add flavor to vegetables will have to continue to pay this price or even higher for some more time,” said a trader.
Nashik-based NHRDF estimated area under onion crop down by 10 per cent this year from 10.87 lakh hectares last year.
Meanwhile, onion exports from India fell sharply by 81 per cent to 29,247 tonnes in August as compared to same month a year ago, after the government imposed curbs on the overseas sale. India, the second largest producer of onion in the world after China, is estimated to have harvested 16.6 million tonnes of the staple vegetable last year. Total realization from 1.82 lakh tonnes of onion exports stood at Rs 2,294 crore in 2012.
