Tomatoes to touch Rs 80/kg

Mehengaai!

Tomato prices soared up to Rs 70 per kg in city Rythu Bazaars and other prominent malls on Sunday and are expected to rise to Rs 80 per kg in the coming days.

Traders are scrambling to find enough of the vegetable in stark contrast to the glut situation created as farmers routinely dumped their harvest on streets in protest, even as its prices were rising upwards since the last week.

Owing to the heat wave, lack of rains and depletion of ground water levels procuring tomatoes is a tough task now as the crop output has dropped drastically in villages like Shamirpet, Toopran, Shankerpally, Nawabpet, Moinabad and Saroornagar.

The major supplies from Bengaluru and Madanapalle are unable to meet the local requirement either due to the low yield in their own areas. Speaking on the rising vegetable prices, a market official from Alwal Rythu Bazar said, “It’s not only that tomato is in the news for the price rise; other vegetables, too have witnessed drastic spike over the previous year.

Beans are now hovering around Rs 50 per kg and in some places even Rs 60 a kg. The pric has doubled in comparison to last year. However, the prices of the tomatoes are likely to come down in December as the local and interstate crop supplies might be substantial.”

Meanwhile, consumers at Rythu Bazaar in Alwal said, “Previously, it was onion prices that caused us pain. In the last month tomatoes and red gram prices are soaring. We don’t know what’s coming in the next months.”