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If social media is a reliable barometer to assess trends, going by the number of onion-related posts flooding Twitter, the commodity's skyrocketing prices have got the public agitated and the government worried.
With onions a part of the staple diet of even the poor man in much of the country, it is considered a "politically sensitive" commodity. Prices are close to Rs 100 a kg in some parts and reports of theft of large quantities have came from Nashik (2,000 kg) and Mumbai (700 kg). In Telangana, citizens had to show authorised identity cards and stand in kilometre-long queues to buy at subsidised rates, limited to two kg a family.
The 1998 Delhi assembly poll defeat for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was attributed to spiralling onion prices. The BJP has not managed to get back to power again in the city. The 1980 general election which brought Indira Gandhi back to power was dubbed the "onion election", its surging prices helping the fall of the first non-Congress government at the Centre. Politicians over the years have worn garlands of onions as a symbol of protest against a ruling government's inability to rein in prices of this vegetable, which occupies pride of place in Indian kitchens.
In this city, despite the Aam Aadmi Party government selling it at a subsidised Rs 38 a kg through their authorised outlets, the opposition BJP had a bone to pick, accusing it of not using a Rs 526-crore advertising budget to give this adequate publicity.
Steps
The Centre is now stepping in to stem the crisis. The food, agriculture and commerce ministries have worked in tandem to bring down prices and increase supplies. Officials in the departments of consumer affairs, food and agriculture were in constant touch with counterparts in states, particularly Maharashtra, to ensure hoarders liquidated their inventories.
Sources say the coming Bihar elections also prompted the BJP government at the Centre to take the matter seriously. It has decided to import 10,000 tonnes and raised the Minimum Export Price to $700 a tonne from the existing $425 a tonne. It says these steps have discouraged hoarding and helped ease the situation. If the impact has not been felt in local markets, the Centre pushes the blame at states' doorsteps, with only Andhra Pradesh and Telangana able to avail of grants from the Rs 500-crore Price Stabilisation Fund.
Generally, onion prices move up during this time of the year. This time, in addition, large tracts of the rabi onion crop was hit by unseasonal rain and hail, in March. That was after an output of 18.92 million tonnes in 2014-15, almost 480,000 tonnes less than the previous year. So, drying of rabi supply came with an existing shortage, exploited by hoarders.
Government officials maintain that by September 10, about 10,000 tonnes will come in from Pakistan, China and Egypt, for which tenders have already been approved. Even so, it has been rapped by opposition parties.
Lack of long-term policy
Former Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar,in a recent interview to The Indian Express, said: "This (shortage) happened even when I was minister. There was a ban on onion, sugar and milk powder exports, but temporary. I think this government's focus is more on the consumer than on producers. Generally, there is a pressure from the urban population and this government is more likely to succumb to that pressure."
Pawar indicated knee-jerk reaction like a virtual stop to exports could discourage farmers from future sowing. "If you see onion prices, there are hardly 15 days to two months where the farmer gets to make some money. In the other nine to 10 months, the prices are at levels where even production costs aren't easy to recover," Pawar was quoted.
Such was the intensity of the onion crisis that the previous Congress-led government had said it planned to build vegetable clusters alongside big cities to permanently tide over the recurring crisis of vegetable shortages, particularly of onions and potatoes.
Onions are produced mostly in Maharashtra and Karnataka but consumed in almost all parts of the country. Government officials said a handful of traders at the Lasalgaon mandi, near Nashik, control the entire trade, deciding amount of supply and rates. A Competition Commission of India study in 2013 had found clear instances of cartelisation and market manipulation by onion traders, not by farmers. Most such traders are politically well-connected.
