State flower market hit by demonetisation

VIJAYAWADA: Demonetisation has brought down the prices of flowers at the Rajiv Gandhi Wholesale Flower Market, the State’s largest, in the city. The vendors are at their wits’ end to dispose of the stocks as the customer count has dropped down drastically due to the ongoing cash crunch.

Most of the sellers have been left with no option but to literally throw away bundles and bundles of withered flowers - this, despite slashing the prices by about 50 per cent - or just give them away for a song.

In the last three days, the market procured only 360 tonnes of flowers, including roses, chrysanthemums, lilies and jasmine, and they are finding it difficult to sell even this. The usual demand before demonetisation was around 600 tonnes a day. Jasmine, which was sold for  Rs 400 a kg, is now being offered for  Rs 160 a kg. Roses, which usually cost  Rs 150 per kg, are now up for grabs for an unbelievable  Rs 20-30 a kg. Similarly, the going rate of marigold is now  Rs 5 a kg as against the usual  Rs 30.

“Some sections are coming to the market with the intention of getting change for  Rs 500 and  Rs 1,000 notes and not to buy flowers (a few vendors are still accepting these old notes). I am  unable to tender change for the new Rs 2,000 notes to customers as ATMs are also not working,” rued Sk Noorjahan, a florist.

However, flowers used in temples and religious ceremonies fared better. That too in a limited way. Some wholesale vendors who have temple authorities as customers, are managing to sell even at a relatively higher prices than usual. For instance, while marigold at some outlets is on offer for just Rs 5 a kg, at a few others, the same flower is being sold to the temples for Rs 50 a kg.

“The market usually procures almost 2 tonnes of jasmine at Rs 400 a kg and sells them for a profit of 5 to 6 per cent. For the last one week, I could not sell jasmine at even Rs 160 a kg. I had no option but to dump the flowers,” said A Naresh, florist. Another wholesale merchant K Ganapathi Rao, who has been selling flowers for the past 40 years, said he had never seen merchants incurring such losses. “We had to throw away the flowers or sell them at dirt cheap prices. The business has been on a sharp downward spiral. We lost more than 50 per cent of the business after demonetisation,” Ganapathi Rao said.

“The prices of perishable goods like flowers are highly volatile. Demonetisation has had an adverse impact on demand and supply,” said SK Jani, president, Rajiv Gandhi Wholesale Flower Merchants’ Association. Jani also said that with lack of change for higher denomination notes, several marriage orders too had been cancelled in the past week which meant a loss of Rs 2 lakh for vendors. Several varieties, including roses, were being imported from Bengaluru on a daily basis. Besides them, marigold, chrysanthemum, lily and others are cultivated in surrounding villages.  Transportation is hit, as none of the auto and lorry drivers are accepting old notes, he said.