Govt cracks whip on Nafed, orders e-auction of onions | India News

NEW DELHI: The government has directed its agri cooperative organisation National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (Nafed) to sell onion from its buffer stocks through the Centre’s online e-NAM platform instead of transporting the key kitchen item by trucks to the mandis and auctioning them physically like a trader. This will help better price realisation and the government will also save the cost it pays for selling onions at a lower rate for market intervention.
Sources said auctioning onions through e-NAM platform will also eliminate any human interference and biased decisions. The government bears the cost to make onions available at a cheaper rate after buying and storing them.
Another government entity, National Cooperative Consumers Federation (NCCF), has sold 9,637 tonnes of onion on e-NAM platform from its stock from Lasalgaon, Nasik to buyers in states such as Punjab, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. On Tuesday it sold a record 1,300 tonnes on the platform.

The agriculture ministry has written, “It has been informed that Nafed is first shifting the entire stock via road transport to the destination APMC (mandi) and thereafter conducting e-NAM/physical sale, which is against the practice undertaken by the NCCF.”
It has said this practice is better against the earlier practice of physically transporting the stocks of the destination mandis and subsequently carrying out the sale there wherein the sale price was determined post transportation.
The agriculture ministry’s direction comes at a time when the mandis in Nasik district of Maharashtra continue to be shut. The Nafed and NCCF currently have around 3 lakh tonne (MT) of onion buffer stock, which is being released to cool down the prices.

Meanwhile, the Nashik onion traders said the direction to sell the commodity through e-NAM doesn’t bring any relief to farmers or the consumers. “The Nafed and NCCF are utilising the government’s market stabilisation fund, which is aimed at ensuring consumers get food produce at an affordable rate. So, they should go for retail sale through their channels instead of selling them to traders. Farmers are not getting good returns nor consumers are getting any relief. They are simply benefitting the traders,” said Jaydutt Holkar, director, APMC of Lasalgaon.
He said they have held a meeting with Union consumer affairs minister Piyush Goyal and another round of meeting will be held with officials on Friday.