Wholesale vegetable prices in September this year increased by a whopping 89.37 per cent as compared to last year, an industry body said on Monday.
The comparative rise observed at the consumer price index (CPI) basis vegetable prices was 34.93 per cent, Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (ASSOCHAM) said in a study.
“Wholesale vegetable prices increased by 89.37 per cent in September, 2013 as compared to the same month last year,” the study added.
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The study said that retailers were unable to pass on the recent increase in vegetable prices as the retail-level prices were already ruling quite high. The retailers were not in a position to pass on the fresh increase in prices witnessed at the backend level of wholesale mandis, it added.
“This also shows that even when prices were moderate in the wholesale market, the retailers were selling at an exorbitant prices with the result that when the price pressure further increased from the back-end, the retailers’ ability to further charge more from customers had a limitation,” ASSOCHAM said in the study.
The study observed that there was a marginal decrease in the demand of vegetables after rise in prices. “...the consumer does develop a sense of resistance in terms of cutting down consumption , avoiding wastages and sticking to the bare minimum,” ASSOCHAM said.
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In several other edible items such as cereals, the increase of prices at the wholesale and retail level were almost similar — both increasing by about 13 per cent even though prices of rice, surprisingly have shot up for inexplicable reasons since the country’s granaries are full and it had good Monsoon.
“The paradox is that the Monsoon effect on prices of food articles is not materialising giving a pointer that perhaps the problem lies elsewhere along the supply chain or even increasing rural wage costs,” the ASSOCHAM study said.