Home budgeting for many has been quite a task this past fortnight as rising vegetable prices have sent many a homemaker scurrying to find suitable alternatives for their favourite dishes. While rising tomato prices have been making headlines over the past fortnight, the rates of other green vegetables are also showing an upward trend.
A sharp rise in the prices of vegetables like tomato, onion, potato and cauliflower has adversely impacted household budgets.
While ginger, an ingredient that adds the right dash of flavour to a dish, has been ruling at around Rs.200 per kg for a long time now, coriander that adds the perfect aroma has been hovering at Rs.150 per kg. Cauliflower and peas are being sold between Rs.40 and Rs.80 in the city’s wholesale markets and for Rs.60 to Rs.120 in the retail market, depending on the quality.
The traders blame the vagaries of monsoon and also their subsidiary expenditure for the spiralling cost.
Traders at wholesale mandis attribute the price rise to lack of supply from the neighbouring States.
“Green vegetables like cauliflower arrive at the mandi largely from Haryana and neighbouring districts of Uttar Pradesh. However, supply from these traditional supply areas has stopped. This happens every year during this season. There has been a sudden increase in the prices of cauliflower now as fields in the surrounding States have been submerged due to the rain. The supply at this stage is only from Himachal Pradesh. The recent rain has played spoilsport,” said Azadpur Mandi trader Suresh Mukhiya. Supply of other greens has also been affected.
Traders said the retailers are forced to sell the produce at a premium as they have to pay commission to the mandi management, apart from paying the transportation cost.
“We need to pay transportation cost at two stages. Apart from paying the local transporter for carrying the load to the vehicles, we incur extra cost for transporting it to our retail shop. A margin of Rs.10 to Rs.15 over the wholesale rate is unavoidable,” said Suresh Kumar, a vegetable seller at Sultanpuri, who was at the Azadpur Mandi for purchase.
While prices of tomatoes continue to remain high in the wholesale market, onion prices have stabilised over the past few days. Tomato supply continues to remain restricted to just two States — Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka.
“Tomato supply has not normalised yet. Even supply from Himachal has been hit due to the recent rain. However, supply of onion has stabilised as daily arrival has been adequate. On Monday, 120 onion trucks arrived at the mandi ,” said Azadpur Mandi trader Sikander.
(With inputs from interns Vinamrata and Richa Pandey)
