Bhubaneswar: Pragyan Paramita Panda, a schoolteacher and mother of two school-going adolescent girls in southern Bhubaneswar, is aghast at the prospects of having to cook curries for her family with less onion every day. She does not understand why the price of the bulbous vegetable has gone up suddenly.
Onion price has soared to double in just 15 days in Odisha, causing pain in most middle-class households. From around ₹20 a kg a fortnight ago, it is now being sold at nearly ₹40 per kg in the retail market. It was sold at ₹40 at most retail marketplaces in the Odisha capital on Saturday.
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“There is no rhyme or reason behind this sudden increase in prices. Apart from the added hardship of having to manage a kitchen with less onion, what is equally painful is the fact that few people are talking about it,” said Panda, who planned to cook chicken curry for lunch at home on Sunday, acutely aware that the dish requires a significant quantity of onions.
Heavy rainfall in major onion-producing regions like Indore and Nashik is being cited by traders as the reason behind the skyrocketing of onion prices. With continuous rains hitting transportation, the arrival of onions in markets in Odisha has reduced, thus causing a shortage and a resultant rise in prices, they said.
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“There is a shortage of onion in the market. Not enough is arriving for the past five days, but the demand remains the same,” said Jogendra Sahu, a retail greengrocer at Jharpada in Bhubaneswar. “I do not think there is yet any hoarding of onion by wholesale suppliers or traders,” he added.
Traders said they are buying big-size onions at ₹35 a kg and selling it at ₹40 a kg. Meanwhile, small-size onions, less preferred by the middle class in Odisha, are being sold at ₹35 a kg.
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Krushna Chandra Patra, Odisha’s food supply and consumer affairs minister, also blamed excessive rainfall in Maharashtra behind the onion prices getting unreachable in the eastern state. “Heavy rainfall has severely damaged onion crops and caused a drop in the overall supply chain and pushing to the markets,” he said, adding that Odisha government would take strict action against traders involved in black marketing of onions. 
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