Food and Public Distribution department on Thursday announced that they have decided to release the staple vegetable from the buffer stock to rein the prices. The decision has been taken by the government amid rising prices of onion in some parts of India.According to the sources, government earlier decided that they will keep the buffer stock of the staple vegetable for 2023-24. Notably, the government maintained 2.51 lakh tonne onion as buffer stock in 2022-23.Buffer stock is maintained to meet the demand of anything and for price stabilisation. If rates go up, the buffer stock with the government gets released.Centre starts releasing onions from buffer stock to rein in pricesRead @ANI Story | https://t.co/npS06vpOOx#Onion #NAFED #NCCF #BufferStock #FoodInflation #Vegetables pic.twitter.com/cXktrc71Z1— ANI Digital (@ani_digital) August 11, 2023The secretary of Food and Public Distribution department, Rohit Kumar Singh, finalised the mode for the disposal of the vegetable in a meeting with the Managing Directors of the governments agricultural marketing agencies, which are National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED) and National Cooperative Consumers Federation of India Limited (NCCF), on Thursday.“It was decided to release the onion stocks by targeting key markets in states or regions where retail prices are ruling above the all-India average and also where the rates of increase in prices over the previous month and year are above the threshold level. Disposal through e-auction and retail sales on e-commerce platforms are also being explored,” a food ministry release said Friday.“Onion buffer size has been tripled in the past four years from 1.00 lakh metric tonne in 2020-21 to 3.00 lakh metric tonne in 2023-24. The onion buffer has played a key role in ensuring availability of onion to the consumers at affordable prices and in maintaining price stability,” it said.The procured stocks are generally released for the consumers through a targeted open market to states, union territories and government agencies for supplies through retail outlets during the season of inclined supply.
