Irregular power supply seems to be one of the biggest contributors to the soaring prices of greens and vegetables in the market.
“We only get three to four hours of power supply during night time. The rest of the day, it is single phase power, which cannot be used to lift water from tube wells. While the water availability is itself severely short with tube wells drying up, the little that is available is also rendered unusable with these power cuts,” says G. Muniswamy Gowda, a farmer from Chennarayapattana, Devanahalli.
Mr. Gowda who used to grow greens in three acres of his five acre farm, has now reduced the acreage to less than half an acre.
“Greens dry up if they aren’t watered even for one day. It is very difficult to sustain the crop in the scenario,” he said.
Mr. Gowda isn’t alone. Adi Reddy, a farmer from Kolar, another area that supplies the city with greens and vegetables, said that the lack of power supply and soaring temperatures had caused severe losses to their business. “Though the prices are soaring, we are not earning well as we have little to sell,” he said.
Farmer leaders say that the acreage of greens and vegetables in Kolar, Doddaballapur, Hoskote and Devanahalli has significantly reduced over the last two months, leading to shortage of supply at the city’s markets. However, Bescom officials continue to claim that they had been providing power supply for at least six hours in these areas, which they argue was sufficient to water crops.
“We are providing power for three hours during daytime and three hours during night time. We are unable to improve the situation in the immediate due to issues at Sharavathi plant. The situation is likely to improve in another two months,” said H Nagesh, Director (technical), Bescom.
vegetable | Price (in Rs./kilo) |
Onions | 18 |
Tomatoes | 16 |
Potato | 24 |
Beans | 86 |
Capsicum | 51 |
Lemon | 5/piece |
Cucumber | 42 |
