Centre sells buffer onions at ₹35 a kilo as Delhi retail hits ₹62

Consumer Affairs Secretary Nidhi Khare flagged off mobile vans of NAFED and NCCF from Krishi Bhawan on Thursday and started selling onions from the central buffer at ₹35 a kilogram in Delhi. Retail in the city that morning was ₹62 a kilo. The all-India average retail price on 24 August was ₹43.53, against ₹27.37 a year earlier. Month-on-month retail rises the ministry cited include 32 percent in Delhi, 46 percent in Punjab, 39 percent in Uttar Pradesh, 50 percent in Odisha and 45 percent in Maharashtra.

Sales on day one run through nine NCCF stores, 13 NAFED stores, 100 Kendriya Bhandar outlets, 40 NCCF vans and 39 NAFED vans. Mother Dairy's Safal shops are also in the chain. NAFED managing director Deepak Agarwal said vans were out at 40 locations in Delhi and that talks are on with the city government to put the same ₹35 rate on PDS counters. Khare said similar sales would follow in Lucknow, Chandigarh and Ludhiana, where prices are high. She said there is no shortage of onions in the country.

The buffer and the farm price

NAFED and NCCF have bought about 1.21 lakh tonnes since procurement opened on 15 May against a 2 lakh-tonne rabi target under the Price Stabilisation Fund. Production for 2025-26 is estimated at 307.37 lakh tonnes, almost unchanged from 307.67 lakh tonnes the previous year. Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said the government bought in Maharashtra when farm prices crashed and that farmers no longer hold stock. He blamed middlemen, hoarding and profiteering for the jump to ₹60-plus in cities.

Rakesh Tikait, the farmers' leader, wrote to the prime minister and to Chouhan that growers had seen prices near ₹1 a kilo and that NAFED should have bought at ₹10. He said the same pattern hit potatoes. Procurement rates themselves moved three times this season, from ₹12.70 to ₹15.80, then ₹16.50, then ₹17.30 a kilo by 20 June, as mandi prices in Lasalgaon and other Maharashtra yards ran ahead of the official bid. Farmers often sold to traders instead.

What ₹35 can and cannot do

A van price of ₹35 undercuts Delhi retail by almost half. It reaches the households that find a NCCF counter near a metro station or wait for a van. It does not reset the mandi. Festive demand around Raksha Bandhan and the weeks after it is the official reason for releasing stock now. The same department has already watched sugar retail climb to ₹65.05 a kilo, with quick-commerce apps capping pack sizes. Onion is the second kitchen staple this month to need a physical intervention.

Khare's claim of adequate supply is consistent with the production estimate. The price chart is consistent with a thin pipeline between Maharashtra stores and city kiranas. Chouhan's middleman argument and Tikait's farm-gate argument can both be true in the same week: growers sold cheap months ago, traders held, and the buffer is now being wheeled out after the fact. The next number to watch is not the van price. It is whether Delhi retail comes off ₹62 toward ₹35, or whether the vans sell out and the kirana rate holds.