NEW DELHI: Traders and stockists seem to be making a killing as onion prices have soared across the country in the past 2-3 weeks. The staple kitchen item was selling at around Rs 80 per kg in the market in Delhi, as a substantial jump in prices was reported from Delhi's wholesale mandis. Prices of pulses have also gone up considerably in the past three weeks.

Now there are fears whether the retail price of onion will touch Rs 100 a kg or even surpass that as supply remained deficient.

Data shows arrival of onion in Delhi on Friday was about 1,300 tonnes, which is over 50% of the total arrival in all mandis in Maharashtra. The arrival at Delhi's mandis was nearly 900 tonnes exactly a year back when the wholesale price was half of the prevailing prices.

Observers said that the unprecedented increase in prices is artificial and traders want to maximize profit before government imports huge quantity of onion, which is likely to happen by mid September.

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Meanwhile, sources in the consumer affairs department said that so far only three states – Odisha, Telangana and West Bengal - have notified stock limits for traders to store onion at any given point of time. It's far more critical in the case of major onion producing states where traders are stocking the key kitchen item since there is no restriction on storage.

"The price has gone up substantially after there was news that the first effort to import 5,000 tonnes of onion did not happen. So, traders are holding up their stocks for prices to spike further," said government official.

He added that the critical phase would continue till September last week when fresh produce from Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Gujarat start arriving at mandis.

On Friday, average quality of onion was selling at Rs 5,400 a quintal in Asia's largest onion mandi, Lasalgaon while high quality produce was available around Rs 5,800. In Pimpalgaon, onion was trading at Rs 4,900 a quintal.

Arrivals have declined significantly in the last one month. In Lasalgaon, onion arrivals fell to 240 tonnes on Friday from 1,021 tonnes on July 21.

On the other hand, government effort to import both urad and arhar pulses have failed to moderate the prices. In fact, price of arhar has increased by Rs 15-20 across cities in the past three weeks, while urad, moong and masoor also haven't seen any drop in price.