With the mandis in Nasik district of Maharashtra remaining closed for a week, the government is aiming to scale up sales of onion from its buffer stock by National Cooperative Consumers Federation (NCCF) and farmers’ cooperative Nafed via national digital platform electronic-national agriculture market (e-NAM).
In the last couple of weeks, NCCF has sold 9637 tonne of onion on e-NAM platform from its stock from Lasalgaon, Nasik to buyers in several states – Punjab, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal using the online trading platform. On Tuesday the federation sold a record 1300 tonne of onions on the platform.
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NCCF and Nafed currently have around 0.3 million tonne (MT) of onion buffer stock which is being sold in the market to cool down the prices.
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In a communication to farmers federation Nafed, the agriculture ministry on Monday had urged it to stop the practice of transporting onion via road to consuming states from Maharashtra then sell it in the mandis instead use e-NAM for better price realisation.
The agriculture ministry has stated that online trade through e-NAM is better against the earlier practice of physically transporting the stocks to mandis in consuming states and carrying out sale subsequently wherein the sale price was determined post transportation.
“The sale price is determined pre-transportation and NCCF / NAFED can take the decision of finalizing the sale based on the auction price received on the e-NAM platform,” agriculture ministry communication stated.
So far 15,853 tonne of onion on e-NAM platform from Maharashtra from their buffer stock to the purchasers in states including Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Jharkhand, Punjab, Odisha, and Uttarakhand through transparent price discovery through bidding.
Onion traders in Nasik remained on an ‘indefinite strike’ demanding removal of 20% export duty, reduction in mandi fees and stopping of agencies such as Nafed and NCCF from selling onion in the market yard.
“The onion purchased from the farmers for the buffer stock by Nafed and NCCF should be sold to consumers rather these agencies are selling the commodity to the traders,” Jaydutt Holkar, director, APMC, Lasalgaon, Maharashtra, told FE. Traders are likely to hold meeting with department of consumer affairs on Friday.
According to the department, the modal retail prices of onion rose from Rs 20/kg since the beginning of last month to Rs 30/kg on Wednesday.
Inflation in onion, which had been in the negative zone since September, 2021, rose to 23.18% in August.
Retail prices of onion have started to rise for the first time in the middle of the last month after nearly two years due to reports of sluggish kharif sowing on delayed arrival of monsoon in the key producing states of Maharashtra and Karnataka.
Last month, to improve domestic supplies and curb price rise, the government had imposed an export duty of 40% on onion exports till December 31, 2023.
This was the first intervention in onion exports since January, 2021. The government has not imposed a ban on onion exports since 2021 which was the norm a few years back.
NCCF and Nafed are currently selling onion from the buffer stock of 0.3 MT are selling in the markets as well as at a highly subsidised rate of Rs 25/kg to consumers in various areas.
