Eknath Shinde, the chief minister of Maharashtra, welcomed the steps made by the Central government to buy an additional 20,000 tonnes of onions from Maharashtra farmers.
In a joint press conference along with Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, Eknath Shinde said, I thank Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and Piyush Goyal as we requested them to take steps to give relief to onion cultivators. Even Agriculture Minister Dhananjay Munde went to Delhi yesterday. Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in Japan also discussed the issue along with Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar.
NAFED took the decision of procuring an additional 2 lakh tonnes of onion. We are getting help from the Centre. It is a new benchmark. As a state Chief Minister, I thank you again for this decision, he added.
Onion farmers in the state protested on Monday in Maharashtra's Nashik region after the Central government recently levied a 40% export levy on the basic food. According to a notification sent out by the Finance Ministry on August 19, onions now carry a 40% export tariff till December 31, 2023. Earlier on August 11, the central government started releasing the staple vegetable from its buffer stock. The central government had earlier decided it will maintain 3 lakh tonne of onions in the 2023-24 season as buffer stock. In 2022-23, the government maintained 2.51 lakh tonne onion as buffer stock.