After facing flak on social media, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that her comments on onion pricing were taken out of context.
Sitharaman's office tweeted the full video of the debate and quoted saying, "Here is the full video of Smt @nsitharaman explaining in detail the steps taken by the govt. to control onion prices and provide relief to the common man. A part of this video clip is being quoted out of context and is misleading."
This comes a day after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman elaborated on key measures being adopted by the centre to bring prices under control. Sitharaman on Wednesday also said that she doesn't eat much of onion or garlic and hails from a family where these two vegetables are not much in use. Her remarks about personal eating habits came while responding to interruptions by some opposition members at a time when she was speaking on the onion issue. "I don't eat much of onion-garlic. I come from such a family which doesn't have much to do with onion", she said.
Sitharaman, who was replying to the debate on the first batch of supplementary demands for grants for 2019-20, said that onion price surge was due to factors such as a reduction in the area of cultivation and production.
After making a brief admission about not consuming much of onion, Sitharaman elaborated on government's policy for the benefit of onion farmers.
"From 2014, I have been part of some group of ministers which monitors the up's and down in onion market. Sometimes when there is a surplus of the crop, we have also facilitated by giving support to those people who want to import. I have overnight passed orders for helping with 5 to 7 per cent assistance for exporting", she said.
(Inputs from Agencies)
