Onion crisis will be over in 10 days: Tariq Anwar

PATNA: Minister of state for agriculture Tariq Anwar said the onion crisis, a fallout of Phailin which hit different parts of the country recently, will be over within the next 10 days following the supply from Belgaum in Karnataka and Nashik in Maharashtra. The two districts are the biggest onion producing centres of the country.

Anwar said onion crops in Maharashtra and Karnataka have been bumper this year and arrival of the new crop will considerably ease onion crisis and bring down prices. Maharashtra exports 25% of the onion produced in the state. But, this year the Centre has also imported three lakh tonnes of onion from China and Iran.

In addition to Nashik, Bhavnagar in Gujarat is a big onion producing centre followed by Punjab, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar. Over 4.7 million tons of onion is expected to be produced this year in the country.

Onion producing farms in Patna and Nalanda districts remained submerged in water following Phailin which destroyed onion bulbs, said an official of the state agriculture department.

The Bihar government has convened a meeting of senior officials, traders and businessmen of onion at state secretariat on Saturday. The meeting will be chaired by the agriculture production commissioner and will be attended by big farmers engaged in onion cultivation, traders, cold storage owners, agro-scientists of the Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) and Rajendra Agriculture University, Pusa. Bihar has 238 cold storages spread over in 27 out of 38 districts, but 187 of them are engaged in potato storage only.