Govt to restart onion procurement from Tuesday

Govt to restart onion procurement from Tuesday

NASHIK, MARCH 19: The Maharashtra Government on Sunday announced that the procurement of onions would restart from Tuesday for seven days. The procurement through the Maharashtra State Cooperative Marketing Federation Ltd had been suspended since February 23 for lack of funds and disposing off the procured stocks.

The federation would reopen all onion procurement centres in the State, mainly in Nashik and Pune districts, from March 21 to 27. It has been announced that the procurement would be closed from March 28.

The federation has bought about 37 lakh quintals of onions from Nashik and Pune divisions, including about 11 lakh quintals from Nashik region. The value of the onions bought by the Government is around Rs 90 crore and the farmers are yet to receive their payments.

Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh had asked the Nashik District Central Cooperative (NDCC) bank to lend Rs 50 crore and its counterpart in Pune to lend Rs 40 crore to the Government to facilitate payments to the farmers. However, the NDCC bank has resolved to loan only Rs 40 crore to the Government for the purpose.

The federation had started procuring onions from January 4, at higher than market price, to provide relief to farmers in wake of the onion glut. The federation had bought onions for Rs 300 and Rs 350 per quintal as against the open market prices ranging from Rs 150 to Rs 250 per quintal.

The procurement was suspended from February 23 to March 3 and later to March 9 and then indefinitely as the Government had no money to pay the farmers. The Government's plans to export the commodity failed as Pakistani onions were available for $150 per tonne in Gulf markets as against the Indian onions priced at $200 per tonne. The plan to distribute the procured onions through the public distribution system also failed as onions were available at cheaper rates in the open market.

It may be recalled that Opposition parties had blocked proceedings of the Legislature last week over the issue of pending payments to onion and cotton farmers and the Chief Minister had announced that the outstandings would be cleared soon.