A woman buys onions at a fair price shop in Cuttack. Picture by Badrika Nath Das

Cuttack, July 14: The decision of the Khurda and Cuttack district administrations to provide onion at subsidised rates has come as some relief to consumers, but people are complaining of insufficient supply.

Onion is being sold at Rs 30 a kg in the open market, but people can now buy it at Rs 25 a kg from various model fair price shops in Cuttack and at Rs 24 a kg from 100 such outlets opened in Khurda district, said an official of the food supplies and consumer welfare department.

However, insufficient stock has led to resentment among buyers, who had to return empty handed from such counters.

“A large number of such outlets are only providing a maximum of two kg onion to each person and this is insufficient. Also, the stock sold at these fair price shops is of low quality,” said Jaydev Rout, a resident of Tinikonia Bagicha.

Raghunath Patra of Baramunda Housing Board Colony said the local control shop owner was only selling 1kg onion to each person and this was not enough for his family. “Besides, we have to stand in long queues to buy a kilogram of onion at these outlets,” said Patra.

Some shops are selling 3kg of onion to each person and the stocks quickly disappear at such places.

“We have already started providing onion at subsidised rates to people keeping in view the skyrocketing prices of the tuber in the open market,” said assistant civil supplies officer, Cuttack, Ashok Das. He said subsidised onion was being sold at four model fair price shops in the city and 34 other public distribution outlets.

“Selling at 20 of these public distribution outlets has begun and it will begin at the remaining 14 outlets shortly,” Das said.

Onion was selling at Rs 12 to Rs 14 a kg last month. But following short supply because of crop loss in Nasik, prices have climbed to Rs 30 a kg.

The fluctuation in onion prices is likely to continue till fresh stocks arrive in Odisha from Nasik in August. At present, a quintal of onion is selling between Rs 2,000 and Rs 2,300.

“We had purchased 94kg onion yesterday and the stocks were exhausted this morning. The demand is quite high but we are only able to procure 100kg for our outlet at a single time due to insufficient stock at Chhatrabazaar,” said Liaquat Ali, manager of a fair model price shop.

Earlier, around six or seven truckloads of onion (each carrying over 100 quintals) used to reach Chhatrabazaar in Cuttack, the largest vegetable market in the state, and 15 trucks to Unit-I market in Bhubaneswar. At present, only four to five truckloads of onion are reaching the Cuttack market and supply has dipped to 10 trucks in Bhubaneswar.

Debendra Sahu, secretary of Chhatrabazaar Byabasahi Sangha, said the prices of onion would continue to fluctuate till fresh stocks arrive from Nasik by the second week of August.

In Bhubaneswar, after the fair price model shops were set up to check the soaring onion price, the rate in open market has gone down marginally. Onion was being sold between Rs 27 and Rs 29 at various places in Bhubaneswar, as compared to Rs 30 two days ago.

“Our target is to control the price of onion in the open market. This is a temporary arrangement so that people do not suffer,” said commissioner-cum-secretary of the food supplies and consumer welfare department M.S. Padhi, adding that all these outlets had been instructed to sell 1kg onion to each buyer at a time.