Ban on onion exports was precautionary step: Food Minister

21 Sep 2011 Evaluate

Reacting to the, criticism on the short-lived restriction on exports of onion by the central government, the Food Minister K.V. Thomas has said that it was precautionary step aimed at protecting domestic consumers.  The food minister said, “But we should understand one thing, that ours is a farmers’ country and the farmers should get a reasonable price for their produce.” By adding further he said, “The Government needs to balance the interest of consumers and farmers”.

The Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) of Food had to lift the export ban because of protest of onion farmers across the India.  The decision faced stiff protest from the farmers of major growing states like Maharashtra, Gujarat and Karnataka, and had to lift the ban after the farmer’s assurance that there would be no shortage of the commodity in the domestic market.

Defending the government’s decision of ban on onion exports, food minister said,  it was taken as precautionary measure to prevent a repeat of the bad experience in December last year, when onion rates had soared to Rs 80-85 in the retail markets, by adding further he said a similar decision was taken for milk as well. In last December, the government had put restriction on exports of milk and imported milk powder in expectation of supply shortfall at home in March-April in this year.

With reference to the last year’s experience with ban on onion exports after the surge in commodity price, the food minister said “Nothing panic, you should understand that there was a panic decision last December... But this time, we took the decision much in advance in September.”

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