Tamil Nadu - Erode   

Andhra, Karnataka floods have little impact on onion prices

— PHOTO: M.GOVARTHAN

No impact: Recent floods in parts of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh have not had an impact on onion prices, as expected.

ERODE: The recent floods that devastated Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka seem to have had little impact on onion prices.

The price of the vegetable, once said to be one of the factors behind the fall of a government, has remained more or less steady around Rs. 20 a kg, with a marginal increase that is indicative of a pre-Deepavali price escalation. Sources in vegetable market in Erode say the arrival of ‘big’ onion has been steady throughout the floods , except for a day or two when it almost halved.

Wholesale trader in onion, Manivannan, says for a couple of days only two lorry loads of onion arrived in Erode market, as against the normal four or five lorries. A lorry load of the bulbous vegetable weighs around 12 tonnes. He says Erode and other parts of Tamil Nadu get their onion from the Yeshwantpur market in Bangalore, where traders have enough stock of onion to whether the crisis.

During Deepavali and even thereafter, there is no real reason to panic about onion prices, because traders have enough stock. Vegetable trader and Councillor ‘Market’ N. Raja says in fact onion prices will come down after Deepavali. At present the price is marginally higher, as it happens prior to every festive season. He adds that though the common, big onion variety is called Bellary onion, the fact is that Erode gets the vegetable from Pune, parts of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh that have nothing to do with the floods. Onion aside, the price of lady’s-finger, snake gourd, carrot and other vegetables has gone up. There is also no impact on beans, beetroot, potato and other vegetables that arrive from parts of Karnataka.

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Andhra, Karnataka floods have little impact on onion prices

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