Costly veggies become cheap, affordable ones pricey

Vegetable prices are in flux with some of the costly ones seeing a fall in price while those deemed affordable becoming pricey over the past week following Dasara.

Vegetable prices had stayed high for more than a month, thanks to the incessant rainfall which damaged the crops. Traders complained of a fall in the quantity of the produce in the market, which was the main reason for the higher costs.

But even after the end of the festival, the prices of vegetables such as cauliflower, cabbage, capsicum, chili, beetroot, okra, and potato have gone up. The price of ginger has seen a steep fall with a kg of the spice being sold at between Rs 50 and Rs 80.

The prices of onion, garlic, carrot are changing every day. "The wholesale rate of onion is Rs 70/kg while potato is being sold at Rs 40/kg," said Uday Shankar of the Bengaluru Onion and Potato Traders' Association.

However, the price of the vegetables at the retail market has remained high, ranging from Rs 80 to Rs 120, depending on areas.

Explaining the flux in prices, Kumar, a trader in the Dasanapura APMC, said the arrival of a huge quantity of vegetables which were in high demand had led to a fall in their prices.