Mumbai: The minimum export price of onion has been raised by $80 to $305 per tonne effective June 19 following an increase in the domestic prices of the commodity.

"It was decided yesterday to raise the MEP by $80 per tonne from $225 per tonne for the Nashik variety," a senior official of the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED) said.

"The aim of onion MEP is to help farmers get a good price from export," he said, adding, there was no restriction if an agency exports at higher rates.

There would be no negative impact on export as MEP is decided on the basis of both domestic and international prices, the official said.

The price hike was necessitated by an increase in domestic prices since the last revision took place in April, he said.

Last week, onion prices in Nashik surged to Rs950 per quintal from Rs750 a quintal the previous week, he added.

The government has designated 13 agencies, including NAFED, to export onion from India. These agencies meet every month to decide the minimum export price (MEP) for onions.

India''s onion exports till June 15 in this financial year stood at 1.79 lakh tonnes against 2.85 lakh tonnes in the corresponding period last year, an official said. Out of this, NAFED''s export this year stood at 63,000 tonnes.

The country exported about 1.13 million tonnes of onion during 2006-07 fiscal, which is about 17 per cent of the total production of onion in the country.

India produced an estimated 6.66 million tonnes of onion during 2006-07 against 8.68 million tonnes produced in the previous year.