Unnatural hike in onion prices

There is no good news for onion lovers in the city these days. According to what has been reported in the press lately, local onion is trading at Tk 60 per kilo, up from Tk 45 to Tk 50 a month ago. Traders have been stating that transportation costs have increased dramatically of late. But that is not the whole story. Allegations have risen that despite having sufficient stocks of local onion, artificial scarcity of the essential commodity has been created at wholesale level. With the government allowing for duty-free import of Indian onions, there is no reason for an 18 percent rise in price per kilo of imported onions either despite claims by traders that prices are on the rise in India.

We see this trend in hiking up prices before the two Eid festivals and this year is no exception. Traders have been trying to point out the shortage of trucks due to the clampdown on unfit vehicles which do not have the necessary papers. Unfortunately, that argument does not hold up in the face of the fact that there is no shortage of supply of onions. Rather, it is the same old story of hoarding to extract stupendous profits from consumers.

The government needs to step up its monitoring at all stages of the supply chain. If transport companies are indeed hiking up prices on the pretext of having fewer transports, then steps must be taken to bring them to task because such a move by truckers is probably being taken to exert pressure on authorities to go slow in their on-going efforts to make roads safe. Anti-hoarding measures need to be enforced with equal vigour so as to spare the consumers from the devious machinations of the hoarders.