Why has Government’s Operation Greens scheme (aka Tomato Onion Potato — TOP) failed?

Since the start of December, onion prices have plummeted by nearly 50 per cent, and many farmers are not even able to recover the production costs. The procurement price at mandis has fallen by 65 per cent in the last two weeks.

The prices fell from Rs 3,500 per quintal at the start of December to just Rs 1,200 per quintal (Rs 12 per kilogramme) on average now.

Some farmers have reported selling their crop at even Rs 800 per quintal, whereas the cost to cultivate a kilogramme of onions is Rs 2,200-2,500 per quintal on average. The sudden dip happened with the arrival of the new onion crop in the mandis, increasing the supply of the kitchen staple.

This crisis is unfolding despite the government’s flagship scheme called Operation Greens.

Operation Greens was designed to prevent such situations and ensure fair prices for both farmers and consumers.

Sadly, the Ministry of Food Processing Industries spent just 34 per cent of its allocated budget for 2024-25 as of October. This means almost Rs. 114 crores out of the total budget of Rs 173.4 crore remains unspent.

Operation Greens was launched in 2018 with the objective of providing fair prices of crops to farmers. The scheme planned to do this by creating farm gate infrastructure such as storage facilities, allowing farmers to store goods until they get better prices.

The long-term component of the scheme aimed to develop value chain, cold storage, packaging, sorting, grading and processing industries. In 2021-22, the scheme was expanded to cover 22 perishable crops.