DELHI: The Union Government has allowed the export of 99,150 metric tons of onion to six neighboring countries: Bangladesh, UAE, Bhutan, Bahrain, Mauritius, and Sri Lanka, stated the Ministry of Consumer Affairs on April 27.
Onion export prohibition has been imposed to ensure adequate domestic availability amid lower Kharif and Rabi crop yields in 2023–24 as compared to the previous year and increased international demand.
The National Cooperative Exports Limited (NCEL) is responsible for the export of onions to these countries and ensures that the domestic onions are exported through the e-platform at L1 prices and are paid the full negotiated price in advance.
The offer rate of NCEL to the buyers takes into account the prevailing prices in the destination market as well as international and domestic markets. The quota allocated for export to the six countries is being supplied as per the requisition made by the destination country. As the largest producer of onions in the country, Maharashtra is the major supplier of onions sourced by NCEL for export.
Additionally, the government has also allowed the export of 2,000 MT of white onion cultivated specially for export markets in the Middle East and some European countries. Being purely export oriented, the production cost of the white onion is higher than that of other onions due to higher seed costs, the adoption of good agricultural practices (GAP), and compliance with strict maximum residue limits (MRL) requirements.
The procurement target for onion buffer out of Rabi-2024 under the Price Stabilization Fund (PSF) of the Department of Consumer Affairs has been fixed at 5 lakh tons this year. The Central Agencies, viz., NCCF and NAFED, are tying up local agencies such as FPOs, FPCs, and PACs to support the procurement, storage, and farmer registration to begin the procurement of any store-worthy onion. A high-level team of DoCA, NCCF, and NAFED visited Nashik and Ahmednagar districts of Maharashtra during April 11–13, 2024, to create awareness among the farmers, FPOs/FPCs, and PACs about the procurement of five LMT of onion for PSF buffer.
In order to reduce the storage loss of onions, the Department of Consumer Affairs decided to enhance the quantum of stocks to be irradiated and cold-stored from 1,200 MT last year to over 5,000 MT this year with technical support from BARC, Mumbai. A previous initiative taken up in this regard has shown desired results in reducing storage loss to less than 10 percent, according to a release.
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