NK
SINGH
Onion is selling in Bhopal at a retail price of Rs 13 a kg. MP
Government is purchasing it from farmers at Rs 8 a kg and, then, auctioning it to
wholesale dealers for Rs 2.50 a kg, the minimum sell price fixed. The middlemen
are raking in unbelievable profit of 500 percent.
An
economist may call it a harebrained idea: purchasing something for Rs
eight a kg and then selling it at one-third of the price. But the government is
doing it in the name of bailing out farmer, hit by a plunging market.
Operation
Onion looks like a get-rich-quick scheme. Step one: Government buys at the rate
of Rs eight a kg. Step two: Government sells at the rate of Rs 2.50 a kg. Step three: Traders sell it back to farmers
for Rs 5 a kg. Step four: Farmers recycle the sold-purchased-sold onions to
government at Rs 8 a kg. Everyone makes a quick buck. Everyone is happy. It is
simple. It is beautiful.
The
scheme announced by the BJP Government is a recipe for scandal.
Traders are raking in on the spot profit of 100 per cent. Last week at a
government auction at Satna, traders purchased onions at the rate of Rs 2.75
per kg. Within a few hours they reportedly sold it for Rs 6 a kg. They rebooked
the two railway racks of onions, sending the bogies from Satna to Varanasi. The
traders made a killing of Rs 1.69 crore within a few hours!
Traders
smelled a windfall as soon as Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan announced,
in the wake of a debilitating farmers’ agitation, a scheme to purchase onions
at Rs 8 a kg as against the prevailing wholesale market price of Rs 2 to Rs 4
per kg. Many a trader sold their stock, purchased at cheaper rates, through
farmers.
Then
they started the game of recycling the sold onions to government. This week Ujjain
collector seized 160 quintals of onions that could be part of the recycling
racket. At Shivpuri traders purchased onions at the rate of Rs 300 a quintal
from open market and then sold it, through farmers, at the rate of Rs 800 to
government.
When
the government had announced the largesse for the farmers, the official
estimate of total onion production in the state stood at 32 lakh quintals. By
the time it realised that it was being taken for a royal ride by unscrupulous
elements and banned entry of onion from other States, the procurement estimate
had doubled to 80 lakh quintals. Yes sir, an increase of 250 percent in
production estimates!
Onion
crisis has been in the making a long time. Land under onion in MP doubled after prices skyrocketed in 2010-11. It
created a glut in the market, leading to price crash for three consecutive years. The government intervened, purchasing
onions for the first time last year. This year, as
agitating farmers started
throwing onions on roads, the government announced a minimum support price. It was an attempt by a desperate Chouhan to salvage his pro
farmers image that had taken a beating in the wake of
killing of half-a-dozen farmers in police firing at Mandsaur.
There are serpentine queues stretching
for miles in front of purchase centres. Rains have arrived even as thousands of
tractor trolleys are waiting for their turn that may take, at time, up to 10
days. Farmers have resorted to road blockades to protest such delays in Ujjain
and Indore districts. According to an estimate more than four lakh quintals of
onions, worth Rs 32 crore, is lying in open tractor-trolleys. In Shivpuri,
Bhopal, Guna, Ratlam, Jaora and Khandwa thousands of quintals of onions has
already got spoiled in rains. The Government has made it clear that it would
not buy spoiled onions. As queues become longer and tempers frayed, a panicked government
has rushed senior officials from state secretariat to supervise Operation Onion
at field level.
People
are supposed to learn from their mistakes. But governments seem to revel in its
mistakes. Last year, the MP Government had to throw away most of the onions it
had purchased as it got spoiled due to poor storage facility. The government
ended up suffering a loss of about Rs 100 crore. This year too it seems determined
to throw away onions as it has not made arrangements for adequate storage
space.
The
government is wearing the loss to public exchequer as a badge of honour. “Last
year we suffered a loss of Rs 100 crore in onion purchase,” said Food Minister
Omprakash Dhurve, “this year we are ready to suffer a loss of Rs 500 crore.”
But
this sacrifice has brought Chouhan to a different pedestal in the eyes of his
admirers. “Shivraj Singh is an incarnation of God,” said Agriculture Minister
Gaurishankar Bisen, lauding the Chief Minister’s decision to purchase onions
despite a loss to state exchequer. Economists fail when it comes to celestial
matters.
Article published in DB Post of 25th June 2017
(Email: nksexpress@gmail.com. Tweeter handle: @nksexpress.)
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