The Central government on Sunday prohibited the export of all varieties of onions with immediate effect as the country struggles with the spike in onion prices.
The Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry has amended the export policy of onions from free to prohibited, as per a report by ANI. This amounts to banning of all varieties of onions.
The Director-General of Foreign Trade Alok Vardhan Chaturvedi, in a notification, announced that the export policy of onions has been amended.
“Export policy of onion for the item description at Serial Number 51 & 52 of Chapter 7 of Schedule 2 of ITC (HS) classification of Export and Import Items is amended from free to prohibited till further orders,” the notification read.
Onion prices have skyrocketed across the country due to supply disruption from onion-growing states such as Maharashtra and Karnataka. The reason has been attributed to floods and unpredictable rainfall. Onion prices have surged to Rs 70-80 per kg in the past month.
Union Minister for Food and Public Distribution Ram Vilas Paswan, meanwhile, assured that the government has kept a buffer stock of 50,000 tonnes of onions, and had asked states to buy onions from Centre.
“To augment onion supplies to the markets, a team of two joint secretary-level officers have been sent to Maharashtra to talk to the farmers, traders and transporters to assess the availability of onions and to persuade them to bring more onions to the market,” Paswan said in a series of tweets.