One of the reasons for the upward trend in spiraling onion prices is that a significant amount of the imported onion is perished at the time of importing the essential item.
On Saturday while visiting at the country’s largest wholesale commodities market in Kahtunganj of port city Chattogram huge stocks of rotten onions piled up in rows after rows were seen in the warehouses. Traders said, good qualities of onions are being sold at a higher price because a significant portion has suffered decay.
Traders said that to make up for the losses from tons of decayed onions the wholesalers are forced to charge extra amount on top of every ton of the imported onion and for that reason price of the normal good qualities are sold at much higher price.
Some street traders also collected rotten onions at cheaper price to sell to the marginalized people. Beside this, many of the merchants have abandoned huge amounts of the rotten onions leaving them on the surrounding of the godowns.
As onion crisis continues, traders from all over the country are now crowded in Khatunganj in Chattogram to collect these essential commodities. Every day, onions
are imported from Myanmar and other countries through Chattogram sea port to be sold to retailers. But traders said the amount is very low compare to demand. At of Saturday noon, only 6 trucks loaded with onions unloaded imported onions in Khatunganj. Two of the trucks were unloaded at store of S A Traders, a merchant and commission agent also a reputed wholesale onion store where onions are being sold with the price fixed by importers. Good and fresh appearing qualities of onions and the rotten ones were being sold separately when taken off the trucks.
"Almost 30 percent of the onions from Myanmar is found to be rotten," said Uttam Sen, a manager of a reputed spice warehouse in Khatunganj told this reporter, “There is no way to sustain the loss of rotten onions against the good qualities of onions. So we sell them to make up for the loss as much as possible.”
Abdul Azim a trader of Bismillah Baijalay retail shop said, "These onions came from Myanmar. This lot started rotting as it was at the bottom of the pile in the boat of steal body that brought the onions into the country."
Showing some 20 bags of rotten onion in front of him, Azim said, “We also try to sell decomposing onions at a nominal price. Each sack is sold between Tk 100 and Tk 200 while the fresh good qualities is sold as high as Tk 500 a sack.”
He also said that if they do not sell the rotten qualities the importers would incur huge losses. In fact, the rotten qualities are also helping lower middle income class of the society. “We will buy these and sell them in van cars on the road. Poor people will buy these from us,” said Abul Moin, a street vendor of Matharbari area of the city. On Thursday, a number of traders in Khatunganj dumped about 15-16 tonnes of rotten onions near the nearby waste dumping site.
Meanwhile, monitoring from the administration is continuing in turbulent onion markets. It is learnt that the administration is waiting for the direction of the Commerce Ministry to take action against unscrupulous traders.
The Chattogram Port source said that since September, when the price had been rising following the Indian government banned export of onion, several private companies have taken permission to import 66 thousand tonnes of onions through the port. But only 7,000 tonnes of onion came out of it. Such slow import may also be one of he causes for shortages in onion supply in the markets and hence the price spiraling.
A large business group of port city has, in the meantime, open Loan of Credit or LC to import 55 thousand tonnes of onions, Informed Chattogram Port sources.
“The wholesalers and officials of local administrations are hopeful that the price of onion will eventually drop and reach within the reach of the common people,” Said Mohammad Illias Hossain, Deputy Commissioner of Chattogram district.
