Onion no more Aam Aadmi’s vegetable

--As price touches over Rs 55 a kg

BHUBANESWAR: Once upon a time, a poor farmer was telling his wife while leaving for paddy field to bring onion with watered rice (Pakhal) for lunch, but now the situation is quite different. Today, onion has become so costly that only the rich people can afford to have it, let alone the lower middle class and poor (Aam Aadmi) who was in love with it.

Now the sky-rocketing prices of vegetables including onion have squeezed the poor man so hard that they are out of the shopping list of the common man. Onion not finding a place in the common man’s dish is no more surprising.

Though onion is an important ingredient, home makers are in search of new tricks to make curries tasty without mixing it. Price of onion has touched Rs 55-60 a kg in different retail markets of the Capital city.

Onion has not only eluded the common men, it has also disappeared from the middle class family’s curry chart. “It is really difficult to run the kitchen as most of the vegetable prices have now gone up. Government’s intervention is needed,” said Sagarika Bhuyan, a house wife.   

According to vegetable vendor Kalia Sahu of Indradhanu Market at Nayapalli, onion price shot up after cyclone and the resultant flood that hit hard Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. “Again flood washed away the standing vegetable crops in North Odisha. As crops were damaged in 17 districts due to the twin disasters, it has severely affected the markets,” he added.

A wholesale vendor said that they normally import onions from outside like Nashik and Andhra Pradesh. “As the price is set with the importers’ market price, we can’t do anything,” he said.

It is alleged that hoarders and black-marketers ruled the roost to take undue advantage of the situation. These hoarders are exploiting the consumers by creating an artificial shortage of vegetables, sources said.

Sources said that onion price touched Rs 90 a kg in New Delhi which created a panic among the consumers that it may affect other areas. Though the Union Minister of Commerce Anand Sharma assured to control the price, the hoarders would not leave any stone unturned to squeez the situation to their advantage.

Published on October 24, 2013