Data from the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution’s Price Monitoring Division present that prices of 9 of the ten key food objects sampled by The Hindu had elevated as on June 27, 2023 from a month earlier. The value of salt alone was unchanged. File
| Photo Credit: The Hindu
A pointy enhance in the retail prices of a number of essential food objects over the previous one month — from the important greens of tomato, onion and potato to the fundamental cereals of rice and wheat, tur dal, the most typical protein supply in vegetarian households, and even unfastened tea — has left households and small eatery operators scrambling to juggle their budgets.
Data from the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution’s Price Monitoring Division present that prices of 9 of the ten key food objects sampled by The Hindu — rice, wheat, tur dal, sugar, milk, tea (unfastened), salt (iodised, packed), potato, onion and tomato — had elevated as on Tuesday from a month earlier. The value of salt alone was unchanged.
While the 0.5% month-on-month enhance in milk value was the least, the prices of all three important greens had risen, with potato up 8.8%, onion 11.1% greater and tomato nearly twice as excessive as in the final week of May. The nationwide common retail value of tomato on June 27 was ₹46.1 per kilogram, 95% greater than ₹23.6 a month earlier.
“Even a simple Rasam has become a costly dish these days,” mentioned Prema Okay. P., a homemaker at Kunduparamba in Kerala’s Kozhikode, lamenting the sharp surge in tomato prices in the State.
At the Connemara market in Kerala’s capital Thiruvananthapuram, the vegetable value ₹100 per kg on Wednesday. Only every week in the past, tomato was being bought at ₹45-₹50 a kg in the State.
The value of tomato in reality was highest as per authorities knowledge in Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur, at ₹121 a kg as on Wednesday.
‘Seasonal factors’
Union Consumer Affairs Ministry Secretary Rohit Kumar Singh mentioned the surge in tomato prices was the results of seasonal elements. “Across the country, tomato is grown and harvested at different points of year,” Mr. Singh advised The Hindu. “There are some gaps and at some points, there will be a little shortage which gets compounded by weather disturbances. It’s also highly perishable. When it rains, transportation becomes an issue,” he added.
Traders in completely different elements of the nation attributed the excessive summer time temperatures this 12 months in addition to unusually sharper rain spells extra lately, particularly in northern States, as elements affecting the availability of greens this 12 months.
“We are buying the vegetables for higher prices, we also need to ₹20-30 in profit to survive but heavy rains in the hills have ruined farmers’ crops and mandi walas are saying they are finding it difficult to procure crops,” mentioned Ashish Gupta, a vegetable vendor in Delhi. “So, now we must buy these vegetables in wholesale for higher prices,” he famous, including that tomatoes and cauliflowers, which had been bought at ₹40-50 a kg, had been at present being priced in the mandi at ₹90-100 a kg.
Emphasising that the Centre was monitoring the prices every day, Mr. Singh noticed that tomato prices had been really decrease this 12 months in comparison with the identical time of final 12 months. “The all-India average is about ₹49 on Wednesday, which is less than last year’s price. The problem is mostly for Delhi region and the supplies will start coming from Himachal Pradesh and the issue of price rise will ease out in seven-eight days,” he added.
But customers throughout the nation weren’t so sanguine, with a number of pointing to the widespread nature of food value inflation that was impacting family budgets.
Srinivasan, a resident of Choolaimedu in Chennai, mentioned greens together with avarakkai (cluster beans), beans, brinjal and yam had all turn out to be expensive and had been priced above ₹100 a kg. “In such a situation, we can only afford potatoes, greens and banana stem and banana flower. The government should step in and take steps to reduce prices of all vegetables and dal, not just tomatoes,” he mentioned.
(With inputs from bureaus in New Delhi, Bengaluru, Kochi, Vijayawada and Hyderabad)
