Onion Price Pinch Leaves Consumers In Tears; Rates May Hit ₹80/Kg In Bhopal

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): After sugar prices surged, soaring onion prices are now pinching household budgets. Retail onion prices, which earlier stood at Rs 20 per kg, have climbed to Rs 50-60 per kg, depending on the quality, with traders warning that they may touch Rs 80 per kg in the coming days.

Onion traders are claiming that one should not wonder if the rate of onion reaches Rs 80 per kg in the coming time. As onion has become a costly affair, people are trying to maintain kitchen expenditure by purchasing less onion.

Wholesale onion traders are attributing the increased price of onion to lower arrivals in the market.

They say that onion is going to remain costly until the arrival of the new onion crop, particularly from Nashik, Maharashtra. It is in October that Nashik onion starts flooding markets of Madhya Pradesh.

Pradeep Dixit, onion wholesaler at Baghsevania mandi, said that as the arrival of onion is low in the market, particularly due to damage to stored onion, the price of onion has increased substantially.

Bhopal used to get its supply of onion from Shujalpur, Ashta, Sehore and other nearby areas.

Onion trader from Ashta, Rakesh Verma said that this year, the cultivation area of onion remained low.

Moreover, average production was also impacted due to adverse climatic conditions. If average production was 100 quintal, it was reduced by 40% to 50%. This is one of the reasons behind the shortage of onion in markets.

Anand Singh Thakur, an onion farmer living in a village in Indore, said that in comparison to traders, it is farmers who used to store onion in a big way in their makeshift storage houses.

However, when onion began to rot, farmers went for panic selling during the onset of monsoon. Now they have run out of onion and the market is feeling the heat of onion prices.