Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis told reporters in Mumbai on Tuesday that his government would raise the state’s onion procurement price to ₹15 a kilogram, up from ₹12 last week, after a fortnight of fuel-driven supply disruption pushed Nashik wholesale rates sharply lower and stranded harvested stock in regional mandis.
The state government will also extend an interim ₹400-crore working-capital line to onion farmer producer organisations in Nashik, Ahmednagar and Pune districts to allow them to hold harvested stock for the next four to six weeks rather than dumping it at distress prices, Fadnavis said. Nafed, the central cooperative, has been asked to absorb an additional 30,000 tonnes for the price-stabilisation buffer.
Mumbai’s street prices for onions, which had spiked above ₹50 a kilo in late April, have since fallen to around ₹30 amid uneven supply timing and the volatile rupee diesel pass-through. Onion is one of the most politically sensitive vegetables in Indian retail markets, and the central government has repeatedly intervened in onion prices in past election cycles.
The procurement increase comes in a week that has seen petrol cross ₹110 a litre and diesel touch ₹97.83 a litre at Mumbai pumps, after four consecutive central-government hikes in less than a fortnight. The pump increases reflect the indirect pass-through from elevated global crude prices linked to the US-Iran conflict and the partial closure of the Strait of Hormuz to Indian-flagged tankers.
In a separate set of announcements on Tuesday, Mumbai police said the city’s Anti-Narcotics Cell had busted an illegal drug manufacturing unit and seized methamphetamine and synthetic cannabinoids with a street value of roughly ₹50-60 crore. Four people were arrested in raids in Bhandup and Mulund; police said the operation had been running for at least eight months.
A fire at the Sun Mill Compound in Lower Parel late on Monday took roughly four hours to bring under control, the Mumbai Fire Brigade said. The compound, a converted heritage textile-mill complex that now houses office space and a small shopping mall, was evacuated; the brigade said no injuries had been reported but that two adjacent buildings had sustained smoke damage.
The chief minister said the state government would convene a working group with retailers, mandi traders and fuel distributors before the end of the week to coordinate any further interventions if prices destabilise further.