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The price of onion in the port city market spirals out of control despite its optimum supply.
Sources said 1,86,205 metric tonnes of onion have been imported since September 15 – a record import amount in less than a month, but there is hardly any sign for the price of the edible bulb to go down.
Indian onion sells at Tk 53 to Tk 55 in the biggest wholesale market Khatunganj while the Myanmar one at Tk 48 to Tk 50 and local onions at Tk 60.
Compared to the first week of September, the price of root bulbs has almost doubled.
According to the Plant Quarantine Wing under the Department of Agriculture Extension, permission was awarded to bring 11,43,809 metric tonnes of onions from abroad.
From June 2020 to October 9, 2,13,000 metric tonnes have arrived.
Mohammad Idris, general secretary, Traders Welfare Association of Hamid Ullah Market, said the market is saturated with a lot of onions which are sold at the price fixed by the importers.
“Indian onions are priced at several land ports across the country. The importers and their representatives fix up the price and we follow them,” he added.
Visiting Khatunganj on Saturday and Sunday, it was evident that dozens of trucks were entering the marketplace with Indian and Myanmar onions.
Hundreds of workers are busy unloading the kitchen bulbs from the vehicles and taking them to warehouses and wholesalers.
“Usually when supply is up, price falls, but not in the case of onion whose price is rising every day even though there is an adequate supply,” said Ruhul Amin Regen, a commission agent in Khatunganj.
Asked about the reason behind the price hike, he said the price is manipulated by the importers. “We do wholesale, not import,” he replied. Despite sufficiency, various government agencies smell a rat in onion price hike.
Mohammad Anwar Hossain, director, Plant Quarantine Unit of the DAE, said permission to bring 1.1 million metric tonnes of onion has been issued since June, but imports have started since September when onion price in India began to rise.
The real picture would be known after a probe into the LC price and actual onion price in India, added the official.
Mohammd Sahinur, proprietor of Nur Enterprise, told The Business Post this year they got permission to import about 1000 metric tonnes of onion but so far they have brought only 100 metric tonnes from India.
“The LC price of onion carried through Bhomra land port last week was $305. Later its price was marked at Tk 32 per kg. With the addition of transportation cost, depreciation and government revenue, the price goes up,” explained the importer.
“Last August, the LC price was around $260 to $270. Then Indian exporters did not agree to export as per the demand.”
For the last two years, the onion market has been in turmoil at this time of year.
In September 2019, India also imposed a ban on the export of onion, prompting the price of the kitchen staple to reach as high as Tk 200 per kg in Bangladesh.
But when the government approved a large-scale onion import in 2020, traders bought enough of them from alternative sources due to which the market was fairly stable.
Plant quarantine office sources said in FY20, the country imported 5,60,000 metric tonnes of the root bulbs and 5,52,000 metric tonnes in FY 21.
Some 2,13,000 metric tonnes have so far been imported in the current fiscal.
Of them, 2,03,000 metric tonnes are from India and 10,000 metric tonnes from Myanmar.
