Hyderabad, October 05: Sunday trip to the market literally turned out to be a ‘costly’ affair for the citizens who made their way to buy the weekly stock of vegetables. Exorbitant prices greeted the customers who had expected regular rates for commodities instead of the doubled or tripled rate they were forced to shell out. The reason, floods in Kurnool, Mahaboobnagar and other parts of the state had sent the prices sky-rocketing.
V.Sumathi, a housewife who was taken aback by the sudden price rise says, “we all know that the floods have affected the state badly. But never expected that it would affect Hyderabadis in this manner. The prices of vegetables have increased tremendously especially tomato, potato and green chili.”
The tomato which sold at around Rs. 10-per-kg is now Rs. 28-per-kg. The price of ladies finger has been hiked from 10-per-kg to Rs. 22-per-kg. The price of potato has also increased from Rs. 16 to Rs 22-per-kg . The rate of beans has doubled from Rs 16 to Rs 32-per-kg. The green chili which costed Rs 10-per-kg now costs, hold your breath, Rs 30-per-kg.
Krishna, a wholesale vegetable vendor at Gudimalkapur reasons, “heavy floods witnessed in Kurnool and near-by Rayalseema areas have interrupted the transport link to Hyderabad, hence the price rise. It has become very difficult for the stock of vegetables to arrive on time from these areas.”
Since some of the vegetables are chiefly grown in the flood-affected areas, the prices of these commodities have not only increased but are also available in limited quantity. “The green chili mainly comes from Kurnool district and so does the potato and tomato, that is the reason why very less stock of these vegetables is available,” opines Rajaiah, another vegetable vendor. Some retail markets do not even have stock of tomatoes in their outlets.
The situation is similar in the direct wholesale market for farmers or Rythu Bazars, where the steep increase in price was omnipresent. There seems to be a status quo on the situation in the coming days, as it may take a while for the affected regions to limp back to normalcy.
-Agencies