The onion is arguably India’s ‘most political’ vegetable, and it’s as soon as once more testing family budgets and the federal government’s nerve. Retail costs in Gujarat have jumped from Rs 35-40 a kg to Rs 60-70 a kg in simply 15 days, mirroring a nationwide spike that had pushed the common retail worth up by 59 per cent yr on yr to Rs 43.53 per kg by August 24, with wholesale charges rising 68 per cent.
This isn’t a manufacturing collapse. India’s 2025-26 onion output is estimated at 30.73 million tonnes, broadly flat towards the 30.76 million tonnes the earlier yr—indicating the crop itself was wonderful. The disaster lay within the authorities’s buffer inventory, the emergency reserve meant to chill costs when wanted.
The Centre set a procurement goal of 0.2 million tonnes of rabi onion for the Worth Stabilisation Fund—a fund meant to assist average the worth volatility of key agricultural commodities by procuring and releasing shares strategically. Nevertheless, NAFED (Nationwide Agricultural Cooperative Advertising and marketing Federation of India) and NCCF (Nationwide Cooperative Shoppers’ Federation of India) collectively managed solely 0.12 million tonnes—a 40 per cent shortfall towards goal. Compounding this, an estimated 30 per cent of what was procured has already rotted or sprouted in storage, towards a traditional spoilage charge of roughly 20 per cent.
The harm additionally traces to unseasonal rainfall throughout this yr’s harvest and sowing home windows. Moist situations throughout harvest hit each high quality and shelf lifetime of saved onions, accelerating rot in warehouses. In addition to, delayed and insufficient rainfall throughout kharif sowing pushed again the following crop cycle—which means recent provide that must be easing the crunch isn’t prepared.
Farmers, sensing spoilage threat, started releasing inventory in June-July as a substitute of the normal September begin, and stronger wholesale costs pulled sellers away from authorities procurement altogether, ravenous the buffer simply when it was wanted most. In Gujarat particularly, merchants report that farmers misplaced roughly 1 / 4 of their inventory outright to high quality harm, with one other quarter pulled from fields prematurely, leaving solely half of the crop match for market.
Onion worth spikes in August-September have turn into virtually routine, pushed by the seasonal hole between the exhausted summer time crop and the still-arriving kharif harvest, layered with festive and wedding-season demand. What’s uncommon this yr is the dimensions of buffer-stock failure arriving on the identical time.
The Centre has moved on two fronts. First, bodily provide. It’s operating devoted ‘Kanda Specific’ freight rakes from the Nashik buffer, carrying 800 tonnes to the 5 precedence centres of Delhi, Chennai, Madurai, Ernakulam and Guwahati. NAFED and NCCF are trucking smaller consignments by highway.
Second, worth aid. Subsidised retail gross sales at Rs 35 a kg have begun in Delhi by NAFED, NCCF and Kendriya Bhandar, with the broader Nationwide Capital Area (NCR) to observe. Officers say this mirrors final yr’s mechanism, when 88,000 tonnes moved by 86 rakes to 16 cities, in comparison with simply 12,000 tonnes through 14 rakes the yr earlier than. It was a scaled-up response, however reactive moderately than preventive.
Notably, Gujarat isn’t on the Centre’s five-city precedence listing regardless of onion costs matching or exceeding Delhi’s. That raises the query: is any buffer aid headed to Ahmedabad, Surat or Rajkot?
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