Indian cooperatives have once again proved that when worst comes to worst, government can bank on them. The current crisis of onion was addressed effectively by the NAFED and NCCF.
The two cooperative organizations jumped headlong to stand shoulder by shoulder with the government to arrest the spiralling price of onions.
Skyrocketing prices of onion that touched Rs 60-70 a kg have also forced the Centre to suspend exports till January 15. A government statement said agriculture cooperative major Nafed and the National Consumer Cooperative Federation (NCCF) will sell onion at Rs 35 to Rs 40 from Tuesday through their retail outlets.
NAFED and NCCF sold onions at the government rate through various stalls. Recounting stressful moment NCCF Chairman Birendra Singh told Indian Cooperative.com “ we had sleepless nights trying to make onion available to consumers at reasonable rate.”
Thirteen truck loads (5 to 15 tonne per truck) of onion arrived from Pakistan, a senior official of Customs department in Amritsar said. “About five (Indian) importers have brought in onion from Lahore for supply in the markets of Ludhiana, Amritsar, Jalandhar in Punjab and Delhi,” the official said.
The shortage of onion in the markets is said to be due to low supply of crop from Maharashtra, Gujarat and the southern states.
However, according to Union Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma, there is no major shortage and the price rise is due to “hoarding.”
“There is enough stock of onion in the country,” he said. Ministry officials also joined him in blaming “speculative forces” for the price rise. To them, “the damage to the crop due to off-season rain in bulk producing states will not have been more than 15-20 per cent.”