Concerned over escalating prices of onion, the Delhi Government on Tuesday said it is considering setting up of outlets across the city to make it available at reasonable rates.
The Government has attributed this to short supply of onion in the national Capital. It is estimated that there is 20-25 per cent short supply of onion in Delhi. The daily demand of onion in Delhi ranges between 400 and 600 tonnes.
“We may open stalls, like we did before, to make available onions at reasonable rates in case prices continue to soar,” said Development Minister Raj Kumar Chauhan, who looks after functioning of wholesale vegetable and fruit markets in the city.
He said the Government will come down hard on hoarders and black-marketeers of onion as Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit has issued direction to take action against such traders.
Prices of onion have increased to `45 to `50 per kg in the retail market against `20 per kg couple of weeks back. The price of onion had touched `40 in retail markets in mid-July also but it had come down after supply was normalised.
“We are concerned about the rising prices of onion. The Government would not like to leave people at the whims of hoarders and black-marketeers. The Government has enough machinery to foil their designs,” he said. Wholesale onion prices at Azadpur vegetable and fruits market have gone up to `32.50 per kg.
Chauhan admitted that there has been decline in supply of onion in the wholesale markets which resulted escalation of price. “The city had received 3,884 tonnes of onion in the first six days of August against 4513.5 in the same period last year,” he said.
On Sunday, the city received a supply of 551 tonnes of onion while on Monday, the supply was 206 tonnes. “The drastic shortage in arrival of onion from onion producing States during these two days has directly or indirectly affected the onion prices,” he said. Chouhan said heavy rains in onion producing States like Maharashtra have affected supply.