Taking on National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED), the Delhi Government asked the federation to clarify the “misleading statement” on prices of onions given by a political nominee on its board of directors is its official position.
“It is shocking that the NAFED, which had asked the Delhi Government in its letter dated 24 July, 2015, to make an advance payment in case it wanted to buy onions procured by NAFED at Nasik, is now misleading the public by allowing the political nominees to give confusing statements and mislead the public of Delhi,” said a statement issued by the Government.
It further added that NAFED had informed the Government in its letter dated 24 July that arrangement for transportation of onions from the storage points at Nasik to the desired destinations shall be made available by the State Governments and that NAFED shall not be responsible for any deterioration in quality and storage loss.
“Delhi Government has already procured good quality onions from Nasik through Small Farmers Agri Business Consortium (SFAC) — which is a society sponsored by Department of Agriculture and Cooperation, Government of India. Delhi Government would like to know from NAFED whether it is ready to sell good quality onions to any State at a rate different from any other Central Government mandated procurement agency,” asked the Government.
It further added that if that is the case, then NAFED should make public the reasonable price at which it is willing to sell good quality onions at Delhi (and not Nasik) so that the stock can be easily procured by the Government of Delhi.
“It was reported in a section of media that NAFED initiated the process of dispatching onions to the Delhi market on 28 July. later NAFED itself clarified that on instructions from the Central Government, it would supply onions procured under Price Stabilisation Fund (PSF) to eight major cities in the country, which surprisingly did not include Delhi,” it said.