Consumers in pain as veggie prices go through the roof

Tomatoes for Rs 100/kg and the humble onion going for Rs 40 a kilo. With vegetable prices in Mumbai markets spiralling out of control, home-makers are finding it increasingly difficult to keep within their food budget. Most other veggies prices have also gone through the roof.

But it’s the price of onions, consumed in bulk by the people, that’s causing concern and much pain. Last month, onions were in the range of Rs 15/kg, now it’s crossed the Rs 100 mark. Why? Nanasaheb Patil, chairman of Lasalgaon APM offered this explanation. “Apart from its own production, a large part of which is sent to other states, Maharashtra receives supplies from Gujarat, Rajasthan and the South. These have dried up for a variety of reasons. Floods in Gujarat and Rajasthan and other problems in southern markets. This has led to a huge surge in onion prices in Mumbai and other parts of the state,” Patil told Free Press Journal.

Onion production, too, has taken a dip in the Nasik areas, known as the vegetable and fruit bowl of India. “Many farmers this year haven’t grown onions going by the poor returns last year. Moreover, because of the strike, we lost a lot of our stock,” a farmer from Nasik told Free Press Journal.

It’s a similar tale with another mass consumed veggie -tomatoes. On Saturday, many markets were selling tomatoes for Rs 100/kg and more. Reason for the sudden price rise: the huge gap between demand and supply. Nanasaheb Patil says that production this time has been extremely low, at least not enough to meet the demand of this festive season. A wholesale vegetable vendor who supplies mostly to restaurants, said, “Our margins have reduced drastically due to the high prices. Most eateries have increased rates of food items. But they refuse to pay us more since this is a yearly contract. We could not imagine that veggie prices would rise so dramatically.”

Sanjay Laxman Pingale, a wholesale dealer from the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) in Vashi predicted that vegetable rates would keep on increasing, especially from September.

And what do consumers have to say? “It is really difficult to manage daily expenses as prices of vegetables have now crossed all limits. Tomatoes and onions are a must for all dishes,” said Darpana Machendra Mastakar, a Western Railway employee.