Chief Minister Manohar Joshi this afternoon said the decision was taken at the weekly cabinet meeting today. Addressing a press conference in Mantralaya he said: ``The Maharashtra State Cooperative Marketing Federation will purchase a total of 3,500 tonnes of onions from different markets statewide. These stocks will then be distributed in Mumbai through PDS for 15 days on an experimental basis. The Federation will purchase the onions at market rate and the government will give it subsidies to overcome losses.''The government has also decided to allow free sale of onions in the city.

What it essentially means is that any farmer or trader bringing in onions stocks into Mumbai would be allowed to sell it directly without goingthrough the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC), which controls the sale of any agro product in the city. Joshi, however said, this was a purely temporary measure to control soaring prices of onions. He also hoped that the situation would improve once the new crop of onions which was likely to be ready in three weeks came into markets.

``In addition to all this, the Maharashtra State Cooperative Marketing Federation will soon float international tenders for importing an additional quota of 3,500 tonnes of onions from the international market. These onions will be distributed in other parts of the state also,'' Joshi said.

When questioned how the Delhi government was managing to sell onions at Rs 8 per kg, Joshi said the Union Government had given subsidies to the Delhi government. ``About a week back I also wrote to the Union Government seeking similar subsidies for Maharashtra. We haven't received any replies so far,'' he added.

The chief minister said about 30 per cent of onion crop was lostdue to the extended monsoon this year. He, however, added it was expected that about 4 lakh tonnes of onions would reach markets by the end of next month bringing down prices.

Meanwhile, the average wholesale price of old Rabi onions at the Lasalgaon marketyard on Thursday was Rs 3,441 per quintal, the newly harvested kharif crop was selling at Rs 1,645 per quintal. Prices had peaked to an all-time high of up to Rs 4,000 per quintal on October 23. The new crop is expected to bring down prices, albeit marginally, as there is a shortfall of about 50 per cent in kharif production due to adverse whether and intermittent rains this season. The old crop was sold today for prices ranging from Rs 1,018 to Rs 3,652 per quintal. The new crop fetched prices ranging from Rs 251 to Rs 2,500 per quintal.