The pricey onion

The shortfall in onion supply is attributed to heavy rain in the country. And it has been aggravated by the fact that India, the country from which we import it, suffered the same kind of production crunch this year. But the difference between the approaches of the two countries is that while the former anticipated the problem and took steps to avert a crisis, we are now running from pillar to post to buy onion from wherever we could.

Lack of advance planning to keep the demand-supply equation consumer friendly has always been a problem with us. This time it's onion, it was some other commodity in the non-too-distant past and it will be yet another next year. It's the ordinary people who suffer.

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It seems to us that a vested interest is working behind creation of a crisis situation. They whip up an artificial crisis and try to make the most of a high-demand scenario. The emergency procurement drive costs more, as we have less maneuverability under a mounting time-pressure. The hype that is created around such emergency steps is nothing short of playing to the gallery while the consumers pay through their noses.

A meaningful free market operation demands a high degree of planning efficiency and management skill in terms of purchase, procurement and distribution. Even spot buying must be kept within the purview of such planning.

A sudden spurt in the price of any commodity adds to the predicament of people already grappling with the general trend of price hikes. The extremely high price of any particular commodity may also have a sympathetic reaction in the price situation as a whole.

Our planners have always shown poor preparedness and foresight insofar as tackling a sudden turn of events is concerned. The present crisis is another reminder of the lapses at planning level.