Grocery shop owners, small-scale vendors, and retail buyers flock the two wholesale vegetable markets in the city every morning to purchase fresh vegetables. The markets, which register nearly Rs. 3 crore sales a day, saw business drop by nearly 30 per cent on Monday.
“Even after the announcement on Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes, we were accepting these notes. However, yesterday we decided not to accept them anymore,” says M. Rajendran, president of the Thyagi Kumaran Market Vegetable Merchants’ Association.
As many as 920 shops in the two markets sell about 1,500 tonnes of vegetables a day, mainly big onion, small onion, potato, tomato, chilli, and cabbage. While big onion, carrot, beans, and cabbage are purchased from Karnataka, small onion comes from different parts of Tamil Nadu.
The demand is high during wedding season and also in June and drops during Aadi (July-August) and Puratasi (September-October) months.
The wholesale traders need to pay every day for the vehicles that transport the vegetables to the market, workers at the shops, and the labourers who load and unload the vegetables. “We do not have enough Rs. 100 denomination notes and our customers are willing to pay only in Rs. 500 or Rs. 1,000 denominations. Hence, we decided not to accept these,” he says.
The traders transfer money online to agents in other States from whom they purchase the vegetables. But, there are also several local farmers who bring the produce to these wholesale markets. “Will they accept cheque or online payment ? We need to pay them by cash immediately,” he says.
This has resulted in a fall in arrival of vegetables and there might by a further reduction on Tuesday. However, the prices of vegetables are stable.
“A substantial volume of vegetables is sold to Kerala. The traders there had announced indefinite strike. But they withdrew it. That is another reason for fall in sales on Monday,” Mr. Rajendran added.
Traders at the markets point out that there are several customers who purchase on credit. These customers now offer to pay in advance, that too in the denominations of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000. Since vegetables cannot be stored and need to be sold in a day, the traders do sell on credit.
“One of the vegetable buyers at the market has to pay me Rs. 90,000. Now, he is offering to pay Rs. 2 lakh. This also means I will not receive any payment from him for the next few weeks. I do not want to sell to him now and I am not in a hurry to get back the money too,” says one of the wholesale vegetable sellers here.
With both the sellers and the buyers not willing to take more vegetables, sales has come down at the markets. But this might not affect prices, say the traders.
