The Azadpur Mandi onion traders on Wednesday called off their strike following talks with chief minister Sheila Dikshit who promised to look into their grievances. The traders assured the chief minister that the onion prices would start coming down following arrival of fresh supply.
Though onion was sold at `60 a kg in retail markets, the Mother Dairy and Kendriya Bhandar outlets started selling the dear commodity at cheaper rates. While Kendriya Bhandar outlets sold onions at `35 a kg, the Mother Dairy sold it at `39 a kg. However, the quality of onions at Mother Dairy were of poor quality.
The city government in a statement on Wednesday said that traders from Azadpur, Ghazipur and Keshopur Mandis called on the chief minister at her residence.
“The traders said that they will call off their strike with immediate effect. They were perturbed due to income tax raids. They went on strike opposing the raids. They claimed that there has been no hoarding of onions,” the statement said.
The traders said that the arrival of onions in the next two days would bring down the prices drastically in the city.
However, even after the strike was called off, onion transactions at the Mandis were less, with the wholesale onion price being at `45 a kg.
The traders said that about 120 tonnes of onion were sold from Azadpur Mandi. The low volume of sales was attributed to strike in the morning when most of the auctions take place. The Azadpur Mandi will commence normal business from Thursday morning.
The traders said that onion prices would come down from Monday onwards with the arrival of the kharif crop from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and other places.