City knows its onions. Its prices don’t curry favour with Delhiites as they continue to shed onion tears over skyrocketing prices. Quelling Delhi Government’s promise of a dip in price of this edible bulb during the festive season, the rates of onions continue to hover around Rs 60 a kilo. While the current wholesale rate of onion is Rs 30-Rs 40 per kilo, traders have ascribed extended monsoon as the primary cause for the perennial high.
“We had predicted that by October prices will begin to slide. It is raining everywhere and refuses to let up. There continues to be a slow supply of onions from Karnataka, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. It is not only due to difficulty in transportation. Farmers are not able to harvest the produce properly. A lot of onions have been damaged as well. Fresh produce will be coming in from Rajasthan soon. We hope things start to look up then,” said Rajender Sharma, general secretary of Azadpur Mandi Traders Association, the largest wholesale market in Asia. The wholesale rate of onions currently fluctuates between Rs 30 and Rs 40.
Meanwhile, the retail market has been pocketing the most. “Good quality onions are available for Rs 60 and medium and bad ones are sold at Rs 55 to Rs 50. What can we do, we ourselves are buying them at a heavy cost,” said Mukesh, a vegetable vendor at INA market. Retailers at Bhogal are selling a kilo of good quality onions at Rs 55, whereas in laxmi Nagar it is being sold at Rs 50 a kilo. However, in upscale areas such as Vasant Kunj and Greater Kailash, onions are being sold at an eye-watering Rs 70 a kilo.
last month, it had been assessed that the prices of this essential commodity to fall during the Navratra as the festival marks the period when a majority of Hindu families abstain from this dietary staple, credited with political parties losing elections in the past. Its price rise is presenting a headache to consumers. “We had believed that prices would fall this month. Either there are lesser people observing the fast or the current milieu is beyond Government control,” said Updesh Kaur, a resident of Mukherjee Nagar.