Here’s a piece of good news for Hyderabad’s homemakers. Vegetable prices, especially that of onions, is finally set to dip in the next
few days, thanks to the stocks that have arrived in the city from Kurnool, almost after a week.
Price of the vegetable that shot up after the district, one of the primary suppliers of onion in the state, was flooded, is expected to drop by at least Rs 5 to 8 this week. With the stocks arriving on Wednesday, local ‘sabzi mandis’ in the city saw a reasonable dip in the prices on Thursday itself, though retail chains continued to sell the vegetable at an increased amount, anywhere between Rs 22 and 25. Their prices, they said, would drop once there is sufficient stock.
According to officials of the marketing department, 5,400 quintals of onion has arrived in the city from Kurnool and is now made available at the Rythu Bazaars for Rs 12 per kg. Onions were being sold for Rs 20 at these bazaars until two days ago. “After Kurnool got flooded, we were buying onions from Nasik, Nagpur, Pune and other places outside the state. The prices remained high because of this, as we were paying more money towards transportation,” said S M Hashmi, assistant director of marketing, Ranga Reddy district. With supplies from Kurnool resuming, he said, the prices are likely to dip hereafter.
However, officials say that the stocks in the local markets would remain limited for sometime, till the supplies become more regular and the water recedes completely. “While the quantity that arrived on Wednesday was much the same like what we usually get, almost 50 per cent of the onions were either of inferior quality or spoilt completely. That left us with very little to send to the bazaars,” said Janardhan Rao, secretary, marketing department. Rao added that the poor quality onions, though bought by small vendors, would in all possibility go waste as people would not prefer buying them. “Or vendors will have to sell them for a reduced price,” he said.
Along with onions, even tomatoes saw a dip in price on Thursday, with the vegetable that was being sold for Rs 20 at local markets earlier in the week, being available for Rs 11. Even retail outlets dropped their rate from Rs 30 to Rs 23. Some places also saw vendors selling it for Rs 18. “This is because roads between Hyderabad and Bangalore (the state gets a good chuck of its supply from there) have opened now and there is sufficient stock,” explained Hashmi, dispelling all fears about the vegetable not being available in the market for a long time.
Rythu Bazaars that had also witnessed a dip in the number of farmers setting shop at the markets, as an aftermath of the floods, saw more people report on duty on Thursday. Officials said that the numbers would gradually improve over the next few days.