-Live Mint The absence of genuine competition at mandis and numerous transaction charges are distorting onion prices The joke doing the rounds today is that the spike in onion prices has been a great equalizer, bringing parity between the price of a bottle of beer and a kilo of onion. The humble vegetable has also found pride of place as a gift item to customers at a tyre shop in Jamshedpur,...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Onion crisis: Govt puts curbs on exports, looks for import
-PTI NEW DELHI: With onion prices soaring to Rs 80 per kg in major cities, the government today took steps to boost supplies of the commodity by importing them and curbing their exports. Fearing that prices of the politically sensitive commodity could get out of hand, the government asked cooperative major NAFED to import onions from Pakistan and Iran, according to an official statement. The government also imposed a minimum export price (MEP)...
More »Why vegetable prices are killing you-Subodh Varma
-The Times of India Tomato prices have gone through the roof. This essential part of food in most households is selling at over Rs 60 per kilogram, in some places even up to Rs 80. In February this year, onion prices had similarly spiked for a few weeks, forcing families to shell out double-triple prices. So, what's going on? Is it a demand-supply problem, as claimed by traders and administrators? Or...
More »Blame Govt for high wheat prices -CP Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh
-The Hindu Business Line The general tendency among Indian policy makers currently is to blame international price movements for the rise in prices of essential food items in India. The extent to which this claim is valid is assessed by examining the specific case of wheat. It is no secret that Indian food prices are increasingly affected by international prices. Ever since 2002, when all quantitative restrictions on Indian imports of agricultural...
More »Runaway food prices highlight the need to unshackle the farm sector
-The Times of India Why isn't aam admi smiling? The question's relevant, since some cheer's apparent in government circles over wholesale price index-based inflation falling to 6.62% in January. Headline inflation, it's said, will drop further by March-end. To common people, the WPI inflation figure's a meaningless number. If WPI inflation's dipped a fourth successive month, food prices have been riding high for far longer. Policymakers periodically recommend release of foodgrains from...
More »