KOLKATA: With a steady rise in diesel prices and damage to standing crops because of excessive rain in October, prices of a number of vegetables and fruits have scored centuries — and even double centuries — and have started burning bigger holes in the pocket of consumers.
Vegetables like tomatoes, drumsticks (sajne data), capsicum and beans have reached a price that is quite unaffordable for middle-class consumers. “I used to buy 1kg of tomatoes every alternate day. Now I buy 500 grams a week,” said Anirban Ghatak, a state government employee who lives at Parnashree. Vegetables of everyday essentials like egg plants and parwal are hovering around Rs 100 and the price of chillies has crossed Rs 150 mark.
Fruits like Kashmiri apple, pear and pomegranate are hovering around Rs 200 a kg. “To cut corners to strike a balance in the budget, we now rarely buy these fruits. Most of the fruits are prohibitively expensive these days,” said Sunita Iyer, whose mother has been unwell for the last few days.
Since Mahalaya, the prices of most of the fruits rose sharply because of supply issues. A huge quantity of fruits got damaged because of untimely and excessive rains. “We grade the fruits and after sorting, a huge quantity of fruits is getting wasted. Thus, the graded fruits comes costlier,” said Sahajada Alam, a fruit trader at Gariahat.
Md Nayim, a fruit trader of Thakurpukur bazar, added: “We don’t have a facility to preserve fruits. We sell fruits on the day we get the consignment.”
