Bengaluru : The skyrocketing onion prices across the country have forced restaurants, eateries, hotels and several paying guests to avoid buying the staple ingredient. The retail rate of the bulb has also taken a toll on the onion-rich food items such as Irulli Dosa in hotels and in surrounding areas. Presently, the onions are being sold between Rs 80 and Rs 120 per kg depending on the quality.

Shopkeepers are apprehensive the prices may shoot up further while many families have avoided the use of onion in their meals.

Some hoteliers have stopped supplying Irulli Dosa (onion dosa) as the prices have gone up, while some other have reduced the quantity of the vegetable in other food items, president of All Karnataka Pradesh Hotel and Restaurant Owners Association Chandrashekhar Hebbar told PTI. He, however, was optimistic that the shortage of onion in the market is for a short-term and said the situation would be better after a month or so.

It is usual that whenever there are floods in Maharashtra and parts of northern Karnataka, onion supply is hit because those regions produce the vegetable on a large scale, said Hebbar.

Another hotelier Vasudev Adiga said his hotel chain per se has not reduced the quantity of onion and has decided to bear the extra burden caused by soaring prices. However, his hotel chain has decided to introduce some innovative items, which require fewer onions. We will introduce new items using less costly items. It will bring a new taste to our customers, Adiga said.

In a lighter vein, Adiga said innovators usually take advantage of a situation like this and come up with alternative solutions. That is the way innovation happens, Adiga explained. He too said the current phase of onion shortage is for a short duration, as the government has decided to import the vegetable.

Meanwhile, one of the PG owner Feroz speaking to OneIndia has said that earlier they used to buy one sack of onions for three weeks in a month. But now they are buying it for 2 kg in two days.

“There is a number of dishes, which cannot be prepared without onions. Earlier, we used to procure onions from the wholesale market at Rs 15-20 per kg. But over the last two months, we have been facing problems due to the exorbitant rates of the bulb,” he said.

Among the four metros, onion is being sold at Rs 76 per kg in the national capital, Rs 92 in Mumbai, Rs 100 per kg in Kolkata and Rs 80 per kg in Chennai.

Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan on Wednesday had asserted that the government was making maximum efforts to controlling prices.

Besides stock holding limit, he said, the Centre has banned exports of onion and importing 1.2 lakh tonnes to control prices.

Onion prices have been on the rise for the last one month due to supply disruption from flood-affected producing states like Maharashtra. Prices have risen sharply in the last few days due to heavy rains in the key growing states.