Onion being rotten in some places: PM Hasina

As the onion price has hit all-time high of Tk 200 per kg, prime minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday said there is enough stock of onions but those are not being released to the market.

“It seems there’s stock of onions in the country and these are being rotten in many places. But onions are not being released to the market,” she said while delivering her valedictory speech of the 5th session of the 11th parliament.

The prime minister said some 50,000 tonnes of onion, which will arrive here soon from Egypt, will be sold through the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB). “LC (Letter of Credit) has already been opened for importing 50,000 tonnes of onion from Egypt. These will arrive within a few days,” she said.

Sheikh Hasina said she has already given directives that the TCB will distribute these onions through tucks at the district level.

She said the government has taken an initiative to import onions from Egypt and Turkey. “We’re also looking whether onions can be imported from other places.”

Pointing at the remarks of an opposition member of parliament that onion price is only Tk 8-10 in India, she said such a low price is only in one state of India as the supply of onion from this state to other states is kept suspended.

Noting that onions are being sold at 100 rupees throughout India, the prime minister said India also imports onions due to shortage.

Turning to frequent train accidents, she the government will take proper steps to investigate whether there was any ill motive or conspiracy behind the recent train accidents. “It’ll be investigated whether there was any sort of ill motive or conspiracy behind such accident. We’ll take proper steps following the investigation. We always see when such an incident occurs, there’s recurrence of similar incident in a row,” she said mentioning the Ullapara train accident.

Hasina said the train accident in Brahmanbaria’s Kasba took place as its loco masters did not see the signal due to fog.

She also said the government will examine why the number of train accidents rises during winter.

Noting that an accident needs to be taken as an accident, she said the government will take all possible measures to prevent train accidents.