Vegetables from Tenkasi district in Tamil Nadu are expected to start arriving in Kerala by December-end under a market intervention measure announced by the government for tackling price rise.
On behalf of the Kerala Government, the Kerala State Horticultural Products Development Corporation (Horticorp) on Monday inked an MoU with a consortium of seven farmer producer organisations (FPOs) in Tenkasi to procure the vegetables directly.
Kerala will buy the vegetables at wholesale prices fixed by the Tamil Nadu Agri Marketing and Horticulture Department. This will enable the State to fend off exploitation by middlemen and ensure the supply of good quality vegetables to the public, Horticorp said.
Vegetables will be supplied for a period of 11 months under the MoU. Horticorp will place the orders a day in advance to the consortium of FPOs. Once quality checks are complete, the consignments will be transported to Kerala the next day. Horticorp also has to pay ₹1 per kilo as handling charge to the consortium.
Initial arrivals from Tenkasi will consist of lady’s finger, brinjal, green chilli, tomato and drumstick. “We expect the first arrivals from December 29,” Horticorp managing director J. Sajeev said. Horticorp regional manager K.S. Pradeep signed the MoU on behalf of the State government.
Horticorp hopes to cut down the procurement once vegetable production and supply within Kerala, which were severely affected by heavy rainfall and natural calamities this year, is back to normal. After vegetable prices shot up in the open market in Kerala in November, the Horticorp had decided to purchase from Mysuru in Karnataka and Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu.
Drumstick price rises
Even as tomato prices have dipped, the price of drumstick has shot up in the Kerala market.
On Monday, the wholesale price of drumstick at the Chala market in Thiruvananthapuram stood at ₹200 a kilo. Retail prices touched ₹ 220, traders said.
They attributed the phenomenon to the shortage of the vegetables in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The State is now depending on the meagre arrivals from Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, a trader said, adding that the trend is likely to continue for a few days.
Meanwhile, the wholesale price of tomato has dipped to ₹40 per kg. Retail prices hovered around the ₹50 mark.
