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Friday, October 25, 2013

Price rise pulls onions out of alu-chewra servings Anand Oberoi

GANGTOK, 24 Oct: Escalating onion prices over the past four months have forced restaurants and eateries that depend mainly on the ‘priceless’ commodity to come up with ingenious ways to tackle the price rise.
With onions now costing around Rs. 70 per kilogram in Gangtok, businesses like the alu-chewra stalls are now serving radish that costs around Rs. 30 a kg as a supplement to the onion. Shriram, an alu-chewra vendor at Lall Bazaar informs that since there was no way they could increase the price of alu-chewra and other items at their stalls as the administration is keeping a strict check on any such changes, the only option left was to change the menu.
“We decided to serve radish with a touch of the precious onions as the special ingredient. We cannot raise the prices on our own whims thus all of us decided that we would cut down on the onion expenses and instead buy radish which is much cheaper. We are now buying around 7kgs of radish per day to meet our customers’ demands,” he tells NOW!
He added here that earlier his business required purchasing around 4 kilograms of onion per day to meet the demand of the customers who throng his stall every day; however since the price rise he and other vendors buy only around 1 kg onions instead of 4 kgs per day.
And it is not only the alu-chewra walas who have improvised their menus. The tea stalls that earlier used around 60 kgs of onions (a sixty Kg sack) are now purchasing around 10 kgs per day. According to Ajay Prasad a tea shop owner, most of the tea shops have stopped selling items like Chola that require onions as garnish. However, they are serving veg momos for Rs 30 per plate of eight pieces.
“We have to maintain the size and quality or the customers will stop coming to our shops. We felt that veg momos had a bigger demand than chola so we cut down on chola to give the customers veg momos. We can’t help it so we will cut down on our items and wait till the prices of onions are stable again,” explains the tea shop owner.
Adding to the existing onion price woes is the increase in the prices of potatoes (White) that is used exclusively in restaurants and tea stalls, the price of white potatoes in Lall Market has increased from Rs. 11 to Rs. 17 in the past ten days. With the tea stalls now bearing the brunt of maintaining prices, this rise in potato prices might also lead to increase in prices of items at the tea stalls in the coming days.
It is not just veg restaurants but those serving non-veg items are also feeling the heat of sky high onion prices. A restaurant owner who has a large fan following informs that they cannot compromise with the quality of items and that they would wait it out for a while before deciding to change the menu or increase prices. And now with onion prices close to reaching the Rs. 80 mark, a plate of beef momos has soared to Rs. 80.
The general secretary of the Bihari Jagran Manch, Lall Bazaar, Aswini Jha informs that the hawkers and wholesalers in Gangtok have not raised the prices and have been working with the Gangtok Mayor, KN Topgay to keep a check on any unwanted rise in prices.
“The biggest vendors in the market are selling around 20 kgs at the most where earlier around 120 to 180 kgs was sold per day. The hawkers and wholesalers have devised means to maintain the prices and have suppressed profits to keep the prices at the present rate. Wholesalers sell onions at around Rs. 68 per kg and the hawkers are selling it for Rs. 70 per kg, keeping the profit margin at Rs. 2. This profit is also not stable since the demand of onions in the market has gone down considerably,” states Mr. Jha.
REASONS FOR THE RECENT HIKE IN ONION PRICES
45 per cent of the onion produce in the country comes from the states of Maharashtra and Karnataka. As a result, if harvest is hit in just one-two states, onion prices tend to rise.
July-September is considered the lean period for onion, during which demand is met from rabi (summer) stocks. The kharif (October-November) crop, which starts arriving in markets at the end of September, has been damaged by unseasonal rains.
Earlier, rains had also damaged the summer or rabi crop (March to May) in key onion-producing states, making the supply squeeze worse. The rabi crop accounts for over 50 per cent of onion production in the country.
The economics of demand and supply is playing out currently. Onion supplies are less than 50 per cent of the country's monthly estimated total demand of 9-10 lakh tonne, PTI said citing analysts. Shortage of onions in the festive season, when demand spikes, has led to a surge in prices, traders say.
Summer onions, which can be stored for more than six months, have been exhausted. These onions, which are mostly exported and used by restaurants and the food-packaging industry, command a higher premium. Now, the new kharif crop, that has lower shelf life, has also been hit by rains, so price volatility has gone up sharply. [www.profit.ndtv.com]

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