At the roadside eating places they know people are feeling the pinch and they know they can't push up their prices much - so you're likely to find less onion in your dahl and that the traditional onion accompaniment to a meal is missing altogether.

Watch Mike Wooldridge report from Delhi

Perhaps the ultimate measure of the scarcity and new found value of onions in India these days was a robbery in a one-roomed flat in a Delhi suburb, where the thieves seized a 5kg bag of onions as part of their haul.

One kilo of onions has been costing as much as a day's labouring wage in a good number of places.

For those unwilling and unable to pay such sums, scrambling for subsidised onions being sold from the back of a van has often been the only alternative. But there have been complaints about the quality of the subsidised onions.

Jostling queues are often the only alternative

The government's political opponents have been quick to try to capitalise on its apparent inability to bring down prices significantly, even with extra supplies airlifted in.

The secretary of the Congress Party's economic affairs department, Jairam Ramesh, claims that the BJP and its allies are at their most vulnerable on inflation.

He says: "The government might claim that they have done some wonderful things in terms of policy, but nothing they say can compensate for the fact that people cannot buy vegetables, when 70% to 80% of the country is vegetarian."

As the state assembly elections loom closer, the government is launching an action plan to tackle price rises. It claims that any hoarding which is fuelling price rises is part of a conspiracy to defame it.

In a huge wholesale fruit and vegetable market on the northern outskirts of Delhi, some of the small traders say bigger traders are hoarding and it is very much part of the present crisis.

Other traders claim this is not true, and it is all down to the erratic weather conditions and the fact that onion exports were allowed until just a few months back.

Mike Wooldridge: Government wishes it read the warning signs earlier

One of the traders, Rajesh Kumar, describes how onion prices have beaten all others. But he says other vegetables are increasingly being affected too. He says he accepts that the poor can not afford to pay the present prices, but he says everyone has to earn something along the way.

First onions, then potatoes and tomatoes, and most recently a panic over salt which led to frenzied buying.

That was put down to wildfire rumour and was stamped on hard by the administration in Delhi and elsewhere.