Devanjana Mukherjee, Khabri Media
This initiative is a bid to provide relief to consumers from the recent increase in onion prices due to delay in the arrival of kharif crop.
In a welcome move to address the perennial issue of skyrocketing onion prices in India, Mother Dairy, one of the country’s leading dairy and agricultural cooperatives, has introduced a novel initiative. The company’s Safal outlets are now offering “buffer onions” at an affordable price. Earlier, our Khabri Media team spoke about the sky-rocketing prices of onions.
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Stepping up measures to provide relief to consumers from rising onion prices, the Centre on Saturday said Mother Dairy’s Safal outlets will also sell buffer onion at a subsidised rate of Rs 25 per kg from weekend in Delhi-NCR.
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This decision aims to provide much-needed relief to Indian households, which have frequently felt the brunt of volatile onion prices. In this article, we will explore the significance of this initiative and its potential impact on consumers and the agricultural sector.
Pic: Social Media
Already, cooperative bodies NCCF and Nafed are retailing buffer onion at subsidised rate on behalf of the central government while Hyderabad Agricultural Cooperatives Association is doing so in Telangana and other southern states.
The government is backing this initiative by providing financial assistance to NAFED for the procurement and storage of onions. It has so far set up 329 retail points consisting of mobile vans and station outlets in 55 cities across 21 states, NCCF has set up 457 retail points in 54 cities in 20 states.
While this initiative is a step in the right direction, it remains to be seen whether it will have a lasting impact on the onion price volatility. The success of the program will depend on various factors, including the government’s continued support, efficient distribution, and effective management of buffer stocks.
The government has maintained a buffer stock of 5 lakh tonne of onion for the current year and plans to create a buffer of an additional 2 lakh tonne. Due to recent measures, wholesale prices are showing a declining trend but it takes time to reflect in retail markets.
It may be recalled that when prices of tomato shot up from last week of June 2023 due to supply disruptions caused by monsoon rains and white fly infestation, the government had intervened by procuring tomatoes through NCCF and Nafed from producing states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra and supplied at a highly subsidised rate to consumers in major consumption centres.
