Recently officials have confirmed that more than seven lakh quintals of onions have gone to waste in warehouses across Madhya Pradesh since July.

The officials said that "after onion prices crashed to 50 paise a kg in May, the state government had bought over 10 lakh quintals of onions from farmers at Rs. 6 per kg. But because of inadequate storage facilities and being unable to find buyers till August, three lakh quintals of onions rotted away. It was then that the government decided to sell the onions for Rs. 1 a kilo at fair price shops under the public distribution system or PDS but it failed to sell most of the onions.

"We bought 10.4 lakh quintal of onions. 1.46 lakh quintal of onions was sold at PDS shops. 7.52 lakh quintals of onions have gone bad. We spent an additional Rs. 90 a quintal to dispose the rotten onions," Yogesh Joshi, General Manager (Procurement) of Madhya Pradesh State Cooperative Marketing Federation.

He added "the total cost for the disposal comes to Rs. 6.76 crore. But some fair price shop owners allege the state government's cooperative marketing federation was never serious about selling the onions which could have benefited poor families."

"No onion or any communication from reached my shop till date. No fair price shop in Bhopal got any onion to sell or any government communication regarding this," said Dinesh Maurya, a fair price shop owner in Bhopal, said.

"I did not get the onions at Rs. 1 as announced by the state government. We would have benefitted if the onions were given to us," said Batan Lal, a BPL (Below Poverty Line) card holder.

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BY M.DIVYA SRI