The meeting comes on a day when the price of onions crosses Rs 150-mark in several places in West Bengal.
Amid a national crisis over the deficit of onions resulting in skyrocketing prices for the vegetable, a Group of Ministers (GoM) led by Union Home Minister Amit Shah will meet on Thursday evening to review the situation and suggest immediate measures to control skyrocketing prices of the commodity in the retail market.
The meeting, chaired by Shah, will be attended by Railways Minister Piyush Goyal, Food and Civil Supplies Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Tomar and top officials from the Prime Minister's Office.
The meeting comes on a day when the price of onions crossed Rs 150-mark in several places in West Bengal. The price of the vegetable in Kolkata touched Rs 160 per kg on Thursday.
Onions were being sold in Kolkata at Rs 140 per kg on Wednesday and a sack of onions cost Rs 4800 at the wholesale market. However, in the span of one day, the rates have hiked further, showing the enormity of the crisis.
The vegetable has been selling for Rs 80-100 per kg in retail markets in Delhi-NCR.
The opposition parties on Thursday also staged a protest over the rising onion prices in the Parliament premises.
Earlier on Tuesday, the government revised the permissible stock limits for the commodity with immediate effect.
Now wholesalers and retailers can keep onions up to 25MT and 5MT respectively, Union Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan announced on Twitter.
The importers of onions are exempted from the stock limits, he said. The minister said the decision was taken in order to augment the availability of onion in the open market.
Paswan had last week said that the government was unable to bring down the prices as it was not in its hands.
Responding to a question on when the onion prices would come down, Paswan said "it's not in our hands." However, he had added that the government is taking every step possible to contain the price rise.
The government has announced that will import 11,000 Metric Tons (MT) of onion from Turkey in addition to 6,090 MT from Egypt. The supply from Egypt will arrive in India in the second week of December while consignment from Turkey will reach the Indian shores in January 2020.
Last month, the Union Cabinet had approved importing 1.2 lakh tonnes of onion to improve the domestic supply. Exports have already banned and a limit has been imposed on stock-holding for wholesalers and retailers for an indefinite period.
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