Vegetable prices shoot up 60 pc

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, August 10, 2015, DHNS: It’s not just onion. Prices of other vegetables such as tomato, potato and brinjal have gone up nearly 60 per cent.

An industry survey of 28 markets, including Bengaluru, New Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai, has shown a wide difference between vegetables’ wholesale and retail prices.

The analysis suggests these markets have recorded 64.5 per cent decline in produce arrival in the April-June period of 2015-16, as compared to the same quarter the previous year.
This clearly indicates a shortfall in vegetable production despite this being its peak season.

The Assocham study has mapped 28 markets: Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Dehradun, Delhi, Gangtok, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Jammu, Kolkata, Lasalgaon, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, Nasik, Patna, Pimpalgaon, Pune, Raipur, Ranchi, Shimla, Srinagar and Thiruvananthapuram.

Vegetables like tomato, brinjal, cauliflower, garlic, cabbage and okra have witnessed a runaway rise in prices in the first quarter of 2015-16, against the same period in the previous fiscal, noted the Assocham study.

Tomato prices, for instance, have seen an increase of as much as 61 per cent in the hybrid variety and 55 per cent in the local variety in wholesale markets. Likewise, chilli has become hotter, with wholesale prices shooting up 39.5 per cent, while brinjal is 36.8 per cent dearer.
Prices of garlic have gone up 28.5 per cent, onion 23.1 per cent, cabbage 19 per cent and okra 11 per cent.

“What is worrying is that on top of this sharp increase in vegetable prices, there is a huge gap between wholesale and retail rates, which clearly points to an urgent need for plugging supply-chain loopholes. The advantage of price rise is certainly not going to producers,” said Assocham.

A recent RBI survey of 5,000 households across 16 cities has also shown homemakers expect further price rise in essential items in the next 3-6 months.

Households expect inflation to touch 10.1 per cent within three months, said the RBI’s June survey. The one-year inflation expectation was 10.3 per cent. India last experienced double-digit inflation in November 2013.