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With onion retail prices registering a sharp increase in the last fortnight, the Centre on Wednesday decided to rope in Safal, the fresh fruit and vegetable retailing arm of Mother Dairy, to sell it at reasonable prices in the capital, an official statement said.
A high-level meeting chaired by Department of Consumer Affairs Secretary Avinash K Srivastava, asked Safal to sell the bulbous vegetable at ₹23.90 a kg, which was the rate at which the Mother Dairy arm sold onions on Wednesday.
Onions are currently made available to Safal through a stock built under Price Stabilisation Fund. The meeting, attended among others by senior officials of National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED), National Cooperative Consumers’ Federation (NCCF) and Safal, also asked Safal to double the quantity of onions through retail.
NAFED and NCCF were also directed to retail onions at prices comparable to that of Safal through their outlets and mobile vans. Further, onions from the government buffer stock will be offered to large retailers for sale at reasonable prices. Prices will be monitored regularly by the department for appropriate intervention, the statement said.
The meeting was also informed that the government would consider taking strict action against those engaged in hoarding and profiteering and evaluate the need for imposing minimum export price on onion if the situation warrants, it added.
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