The festive season will only add to growing prices, say vendors.
The festive season will only add to growing prices, say vendors.
With Navratri and Durga Puja round the corner, homemakers will have to think of other ways to cost costs, because the prices of vegetables, which have soaring beyond expectations, are not likely to come down.
Over the week, the cost of vegetables has risen unexpectedly due to the floods in Nashik. With the festive season coming in, they may go up further. Vegetables like coriander leaves, which earlier cost Rs2 for a bunch, have shot up to Rs8 in less than a week.
Nakim Khan, a vegetable vendor in Bandra, says that he is shocked with the sudden increase in the price of leafy vegetables. “The cost of coriander has shot up unexpectedly. There are fewer vegetables coming to the main market, so vendors have no option but to procure vegetables at a higher price. Over the last week there have been only small quantities of leafy vegetables coming to the main markets,” he says.
Khan purchases vegetables from the Vashi Market, but says that a similar trend is being seen everywhere. Although vegetable prices have been soaring, fruit prices seem unaffected. But vendors say that, too, may change soon.
Borivili vendor Heera Kumar adds, “The price of vegetables is on the rise and it doesn’t look like they will come down. Even if there is a slight drop as the floodwaters recede, the prices will shoot up again in the festive season. As for fruits, they will cost more, too, during the festive period.” While Kumar’s daily stock of leafy vegetables used to last for more than two days earlier, now entire stocks of leafy vegetables have been selling out within the afternoon itself.
As prices soar homemakers, too, find ways to tackle the problem. Hema Shastri, 45, says that she has been cooking more sprouts and has completely given up on leafy vegetables. “What gets cooked in my kitchen depends on how expensive the vegetables are, and not necessarily what my family wants to eat,” she says. “I have left leafy vegetables out even though nutritionists claim they are healthy, simply because I can’t afford them anymore.”
Shastri adds that being a vegetarian has been a disadvantage for her lately: Inflation has forced her to stop eating her favourite vegetables. “I hope that after the festive season the prices come down a bit, so at least by the end of the year I can have my favourite vegetables,” she says, feeling hopeful.
a_anita@dnaindia.net
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