The onion crisis is here again...
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With its retail prices soaring all across northern India, the humble onion has triggered a crisis that is worrying authorities. In a space of a fortnight, onion prices have doubled to about Rs.40 here, forcing many to sharply cut down consumption.
For a country that is the second largest producer of onion, the vegetable has repeatedly proved to be a political bombshell.
'We used to buy a kilo of onion for Rs.15-20. It has now risen to Rs.35-40. We can't avoid consuming onion because it is used in almost every food item,' said Usha Aggarwal, a resident of Shakti Nagar in north Delhi.
Traders are blaming the short supply on unseasonal rains in the onion-growing region of Nasik in Maharashtra combined with a short supply in the region.
'We had to increase prices because of short supply from Nasik and Rajasthan. The supply is getting delayed because of damage in the onion crop in these places,' said Metharam Kriplani, a trader leader at the Azadpur Mandi, reputedly Asia's largest fruit and vegetable market.
The key onion producing states are Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa and Karnataka.
'The supply crunch was mainly because of cyclonic rains in southern India and heavy downpour in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. Farmers are forced to sell their bad crop at low prices,' C.B. Holkar, director of the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED), told IANS.
'India is a major exporter also. But export is not the reason for the short supply. Unseasonal rains have caused the real damage,' added Holkar, who is also an onion grower in Maharashtra.
As consumers haggle with vegetable sellers, economists and social experts recall memories of how the vegetable has caused problems to governments in the past.
Said K.V. Bhanu Murthy, professor of economics at the Delhi School of Economics: 'A sense of power play is involved because the middle class is vociferous about price hikes in regular goods. And this becomes a reason to worry for the political class.'
Indira Gandhi harped on rising onion prices when she returned to power in January 1980. And a similar situation felled the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) government in Delhi in 1998.
'Onion is a sensitive vegetable in India's political history because it is strongly linked to the aam aadmi (common man),' explained BJP MP Chandan Mitra.
'Onion touches everybody, from the poor man to the urban middle class,' he added.
'If the prices are not controlled now, then it can spell some trouble for the Congress government,' said Mitra.
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