Supermarkets, retailers in City jack up rates

While the prices of vegetables and fruit are skyrocketing in the City’s supermarkets and retail outlets, they are hardly changed at KR Market, the city’s biggest wholesale market.

Price tags of veggies and fruit at retail outlets and supermarkets over the past two weeks have left consumers in shock, with sellers doubling prices citing crop loss due to unseasonal rain.

However, a reality check by Deccan Herald has found that the prices remain stable or are little higher than earlier in wholesale markets, including KR Market.

Junaid Ahmed, a vendor at KR Market, said although the unseasonal showers affected the quantity of the produce, prices have gone up only marginally, and not as much as retailers would like to claim.

“We still have beetroot selling at Rs 10 and potato at Rs 15 a kilo. But it is costlier by at least by Rs 20 in other parts of the City,” he said.

Rajamma, another vendor at KR Market, said: “The produce the market gets from other states is not affected greatly. Only the produce coming from Andhra Pradesh has come down. That’s why the price has changed a bit.”

While retail vendors and supermarkets have mango priced at not less than Rs 70 a kilo, the prices of even alphonso, the costliest among the mangoes is just around Rs 50-60 at KR Market, as against Rs 150 in supermarkets.

Farmers also have incurred losses due to unseasonal rain.

Shivanapura Ramesh, an agriculturalist from Devanahalli whose crops were damaged by hailstorms, said it is the merchants who have benefited from both sides. They have been purchasing produce at a lower price from farmers and selling them at a higher price by creating artificial scarcity.

“They tell us such vegetables do not find customers, and force us to sell them at throwaway prices, while on the other hand they fleece buyers by saying there is scarcity of vegetables.”