Onion Export: Central government withdraws 20% duty on onion exports, order to take effect from April 1

New Delhi| The central government decided to remove the 20 per cent duty imposed on onion exports. The fee was imposed in September 2024. This decision will be effective from April 1, 2025. On the request of the Consumer Affairs Department, the Revenue Department has issued a notification in this regard.

The government had controlled exports for about five months from 8 December 2023 to 3 May 2024 to ensure domestic availability. During this period, policies like export duty, minimum export price (MEP) and export ban were implemented.

Despite these restrictions, however, a total of 17.17 lakh tones of onions were exported in 2023-24 and 11.65 lakh tones in 2024-25 (as of 18 March). Export volume was 0.72 lakh tones in September 2024, increasing to 1.85 lakh tones by January 2025.

The government said, “This decision reflects the government’s commitment to maintain a balance between providing remunerative prices to farmers and keeping onions accessible to consumers”. Due to good arrival of Rabi crop, market and retail prices have softened. However, the current mandi prices are above the level of the same period of previous years, yet the all India weighted average model prices have shown a decline of 39%. Similarly, all India average retail prices recorded a 10% decline in the past month.