Pallab Bhattacharya and Sohel Parvez

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India finally issued a notification yesterday announcing the lifting of a five-month-old ban on onion export with effect from March 15.

The move is likely to cut onion prices here, easing pressure on wallets of consumers and reducing prospect of profitable prices for local farmers.

“The export of all varieties of onions has been made free without any condition of letters of credit and minimum export price with effect from March 15, 2020,” the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) said in its notification.

The notification, signed by DGFT Additional Secretary Amit Yadav, came five days after a high-level group of ministers headed by India’s Home Minister Amit Shah at a meeting took a decision to this effect.

They took the decision in a bid to protect the interest of its farmers as prices in the domestic market have been sharply declining due to a bumper rabi crop.

Immediately after the meeting, Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said on February 26 that “since the price of onion has stabilised and there is bumper onion crop, the government has decided to lift ban on export of onions. Expected monthly harvest in March is over 40 lakh tonnes”.

India banned onion exports on September 29 last year, a move that skyrocketed prices of the key cooking ingredient to a historic high of Tk 250 each kilogram in Bangladesh, which imports roughly 10 lakh tonnes of onions a year mainly from India.

Since the decision by Indian authority of lifting of the restriction, prices of onion have been falling fast amid increased supply.