Railways to give 'priority' to transporting onions

Railways today asked all its zones to arrange rakes for transportation of onions on "priority" basis and set up a special cell to coordinate their movement as part of government's efforts to check the spiralling prices.

Chairman of railway board Vivek Sahai, who convened a meeting of traffic directorate of railway board, directed officials to ensure sufficient availability of wagons and rakes, said a senior railway ministry official.

"He also instructed the zones to arrange the rakes on priority basis and nominated the executive director, traffic transportation under the Board as head the special cell," the official said.

The move came after cabinet secretary KM Chandrasekhar asked the railway board to provide more rakes for quickening the movement of onion from producing regions to different parts of the country.

The Centre today also asked the states to take stringent action against hoarders and directed the commerce ministry to speed up onion imports as part of measures to ease the crisis over spiralling onion prices.

Chandrasekhar, who is personally monitoring the situation, has told commerce secretary Rahul Khullar to "speed up" onion imports to augment domestic availability and check rising prices of onions, which are ruling at Rs70-85 per kg in retail markets across the country.

The railway official, however, said that as of now railways do not have any indent for onion transportation pending with it.

The government has already banned exports and abolished import duty on the commodity.