The onion price in Bangladesh has soared up to 260 taka after the after India imposed ban on export of the product.
The country is urgently importing onions by air with even the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina stopped using onion in dishes.
The price of onions has soared to record high in the country since neighbouring India banned exports in late September after heavy monsoon rains reduced the crop.
One kilogramme of the staple vegetable usually costs 30 taka but has soared to up to 260 taka after the ban was imposed, sources said.
Prime Minister Hasina’s deputy press secretary Hasan Jahid Tusher said onions were being imported by air freight.
None of the dishes at the PM’s residence in Dhaka on Saturday contained onions, Tusher added.
Several onion consignments arrived at a major port in Chittagong city on Sunday after Dhaka — facing a public outcry — imported the bulb from Myanmar, Turkey, China and Egypt.
The state-run Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) is also selling onions at a discounted 45 taka per kilogramme in the capital Dhaka.
In Dhaka’s busy Farmgate neighbourhood, hundreds of people queued for hours — some getting into scuffles — to buy the subsidised vegetable.
Restaurants have stopped using onions in their menus and there has been a fall in the sale of deep-fried snacks normally cooked with onions.
