Kolkata: At a time when the price of onion has reached a record high in both wholesale and retail market, Bankura district is all set to supply 300 tonnes of the vegetable to the market within a fortnight.
Farmers have been able to cultivate onion in 12 blocks of the district and the price is expected to slide down a bit as soon as the produce hits the market.
"We have produced 1,000 tonnes of onion. Some of them have already been sold by the farmers to cater to the demand of fast food outlets spread across Asansol, Durgapur and Raniganj. The vegetable is being sold in premature stage as the farmers have been getting good price for their produce. However, we have arrangement of 300 tonnes of onion which will mature fully in 10 to 15 days and will be sent to the markets across the state," said Subhasis Batabyal, vice-chairman of West Bengal Agro Industries Corporation (WBAIC), who is also the Bankura district president of Trinamool Congress.
The domestic annual demand for onion in Bengal is 5.5 lakh metric tonnes. The price of the vegetable is presently hovering around Rs 100 per kg.
However, the government has chipped in with subsidy to sell onions at Rs 59 per kg from 136 Sufal Bangla stalls in various markets across the state, including 19 in the city. 935 ration shops in the city are also selling the vegetable at the same rate.
The district had produced 1,500 tonnes of onion but heavy rainfall just before Kali Puja caused damage to nearly 500 tonnes. These onions were cultivated during monsoon that had set in much later than its schedule and also retreated much later. So, the sowing as well as the cultivation process was delayed.
The blocks that have grown good quantity of onion are Chhatna, Mejia, Gangajalghati, Saltora, Bankura I and Bankura II to name a few.
In 2011 when the Mamata Banerjee government assumed power for the first time in the state, the state's onion produce catered only to 20 percent of the state's demand in the state.
Now, the state is able to meet nearly 50 percent of the demand, while the rest needs to be imported from Nashik, parts of Andhra Pradesh, parts of Karnataka and Bihar.
A senior official of WBAIC said that onion is cultivated twice in a year - during the rainy season and during winter. The variety that is cultivated during monsoon is the dark red one, while the Sukhsagar (a bit whitish) variety is cultivated during winter. Bankura, Purulia, West Midnapore, Birbhum , Burdwan and Murshidabad produce onion in Bengal.