13 trucks of Onion arrive from Pakistan

Amritsar : At a time when onion prices are soaring across the country, Punjab may look forward to some respite from unexpected quarters as 13 truckloads of onion today crossed over to India through the Attari-Wagah land route. Confirming the development, Assistant Commissioner of Customs RK Duggal said 13 small trucks laden with 200 bags of onions each had crossed over to India. He said it had cost the importers around Rs 20 per kg after paying custom duty etc. Rajdeep Uppal, the managing director of Narain Exim, a leading Amritsar firm, said they had received 120 tonnes of onion from Pakistan today. He hoped that as the import would increase, it would take care of the prevailing shortage here. He said they were expecting import of at least 30-40 trucks of onion from Pakistan daily for the next one week. He, however, added that the demand from India had also affected the onion prices in Pakistan. According to him, Pakistan, too, did not have extra onion crop and in fact India had been exporting onions to them in March-April this year.