New Delhi:
The central government on Saturday withdrew 20 per cent duty on the export of onions imposed in September 2024.
The decision will come into effect on April 1, 2025. The Department of Revenue issued a notification to this effect today on the Department of Consumer Affairs’s communication.
To ensure domestic availability, the government had taken measures to check export by means of duty, minimum export price (MEP) and even to the extent of export prohibition for almost five months, from December 8, 2023 till May 3, 2024.
The export duty of 20 per cent, which now stands removed, has been in place since September 13, 2024.
Despite export restrictions, the government said that the total onion export during 2023-24 was 17.17 lakh tonne and in 2024-25 (till March 18), it was 11.65 lakh tonne.
Monthly onion export quantity had picked up from 0.72 lakh tonne in September, 2024 to 1.85 lakh tonne in January, 2025.
“The decision stands as another testament to the government’s commitment to ensuring remunerative prices to farmers while maintaining affordability of onion to the consumers at this crucial juncture when both mandi and retail prices have soften following expected arrival of rabi crops in good quantities,” Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, said in a release.
Even though, the current mandi prices are above the level during corresponding period of previous years, a decline of 39 per cent is observed in the all-India weighted average modal prices, the release said.
Similarly, all-India average retail onion prices recorded declined of 10 per cent over the past one month.
Onion arrival in benchmark markets Lasalgoan and Pimpalgaon have increased from this month.
As per the estimates of Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, rabi production this year at 227 lakh metric tonnes is over 18 per cent higher than 192 lakh tonne last year.
The rabi onion, which accounted for 70-75 per cent of India’s total onion production, is crucial for overall availability and stability in prices till the arrival of kharif crop from October/November onward.
“The estimated higher production this season is expected to further ease the market prices in coming months,” the food ministry said.
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