The prices of vegetables, mainly tomato, radish and beans, have dipped sharply in Tiruchi market due to heavy arrivals.
According to market sources, the prices of several vegetables are hovering around ₹10 a kg. Ladies finger is among the few vegetables that is quoted at ₹25 a kg. The price of beans, which hovers around ₹70 per kg for most part of the year, has crashed to ₹15-20 a kg.
Radish and tomato are among the top vegetables that are sold at ₹4 and ₹6 a kg respectively. In Gandhi Market, which gets its supply of tomato from Bengaluru in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, a kg of top quality tomato was sold at ₹6. It was ₹8 at Uzhavar Sandhai in Thennur on Thursday.
The cost of one box (25 kg) of tomato was₹150 in the wholesale market. There were not many takers for radish as the market was flooded with heavy arrival on Thursday.
Retail vendors at Gandhi Market are hardpressed to sell the vegetables. Some traders, who could not clear the arrivals, preferred to dump them as waste, which eventually was transported to Ariyamangalam dump yard on Wednesday.
Traders attribute the slump in prices to heavy arrival of vegetables than the actual demand over the past few weeks. Besides the arrivals from Dindigul, Theni, Pollachi, Oddanchathiram, Kallupatty and Vaiyampatty, the market in Tiruchi continues to get excess loads of tomato from Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh apparently due to heavy productivity.
“The prices of vegetables always rule low during winter season as it is conducive for vegetable cultivation. The trend continues this year too. Market is literally dumped with fresh vegetables,” says S.M.H. Sulthan, a whole sale vegetable trader at Gandhi Market in Tiruchi.
An official at a Uzhavar Sandhai said consumers could carry a bag full of vegetables for 10 days with just ₹200. It was a good season for consumers but a bad one for farmers.
Several farmers, who brought vegetables from their farms, were distraught over the prevailing market price.
