Pune: Though the city has started getting it's share of rains, market rates of vegetables continue to rise. While there was a significant increase in the prices of basic vegetables last week, rates of tomatoes have doubled over the past four days.
"Prices of tomatoes have changed from 700 a quintal to 1500 a quintal in a week, according to our reports" said ND Ghule, in charge of vegetables and fruits at Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC), Pune.
While he added that other basic vegetables like potatoes, onions and leafy vegetables also had minor fluctuations, tomatoes saw a large hike in price. The availability of tomatoes is reduced as majority of the farmers have lost their sown crops due to lack of rains.
The increase in prices of tomatoes has hit the wholesale market of the city as not many retailers are picking up tomato stocks. A city based wholesale merchant, Hanumant Chawdhary said
"Tomato crops need good amount of water, over 60 per cent of the crop is damaged because of scarce water availability. Before we sold 200 kilogram tomatoes at the least per retailer, now retailers hardly pick up 50 kg. The wholesale price has increased from 15 - 16 per kg to 30 - 32 per kg"
Tomato rates with the retailers are observed to differ with the area and locality of the city. In the posh localities like Koregaon Park, Kalyani Nagar, NIBM road, Viman Nagar and Camp, the prices have gone up to Rs. 60 per kg. "A kilo was available for 20 Rs last week and since yesterday the prices are between Rs 50 to 60 per kg, because of less wholesale stocks available" said Ganesh Jadhav, pooja fruits and vegetables of Koregaon Park.
In areas like Shukravwar Peth, Sahakar Nagar, Swargate and Parvati, the rates of tomatoes were around Rs 45 to Rs 50 per kg on Monday. Sanjay M of Sanjay Vegetables in Shukrawar Peth added, "The low and mid income group customers who used to buy a kilo of tomatoes earlier, now hardly buy 250 grams because of the price hike. We are not stocking up much of tomatoes for this reason"
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