Vegetable prices skyrocket in Amritsar

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Amritsar, July 22

The prices of almost all vegetables continue to spiral with the cost of one kilo of tomato reaching Rs 100 and of onions Rs 50. As the production of vegetable has gone down due to rain, the prices of other vegetables too have soared.

Local vegetable sellers said the prices of tomato started increasing for the last one week when it was selling for around Rs 40 per kilo. Shopkeepers claimed that as the supply from other states has decreased, the prices of tomato would increase further.

Tomato and onions are the basic ingredients of almost every vegetable during the summer months. Even locally, the production of vegetables has gone down after rain.

The fall in the supply of vegetables from fields have affected common people as buying vegetables is burning a hole in their pockets. “Pumpkins, bitter gourd and ladyfinger have suddenly gone beyond the buying capacity of common people who cannot afford them,” said Surinder Kaur, a homemaker.

In the local retail market, pumpkins are selling at Rs 80 per kilo, bitter gourd at Rs 60 per kilo and ladyfinger Rs 70 per kilo. Farmers stated that the supply of local vegetables have gone down as farmers had uprooted the plants after the first rain to cultivate paddy.

“Most farmers grow vegetables as a third crop between rice and wheat,” said Satnam Singh, a vegetable grower, adding that controlling weeds in veggie fields during the monsoon season become a headache, as a result of which farmer go for basmati.

They stated that after the monsoon is over, the cultivation of early sown winter varieties would start. “Locally grown winter vegetables would be available in the market by the mid of October for which sowing would start by the end of August,” said another farmer.