Kolkata: Vegetable Prices Skyrocket After Scanty Rainfall

Kolkata: Prices of essential vegetables have surged significantly across Bengal, affecting items such as eggplant, bitter gourd, green chilli, cucumber, tomato, capsicum, beans, cauliflower, and cabbage. Eggplant is now priced between Rs 120 and Rs 150 per kilogram, while bitter gourd commands Rs 100 to Rs 120. Green chillies, crucial for Bengali cooking, are steeply priced between Rs 150 and Rs 200 per kilogram. Cucumber, essential for salads, is fetching Rs 100 to Rs 120 per kilogram.

Tomatoes range between Rs 100 and Rs 120 per kilogram, while capsicum has reached a luxurious Rs 200 per kilogram. Cauliflower is being sold at Rs 50 each, and cabbage at Rs 60 each, marking a significant rise.

A state government task force member overseeing retail market prices attributes the price hike to inadequate vegetable supplies failing to meet demand due to insufficient rainfall in key vegetable production areas.

“We interacted with the vegetable vendors at different retail markets in the city. They claimed that because of the insufficient rainfall, there had been a hit in the production at the vegetable hubs of the state. So the supply is much less compared to the demand. As claimed by the retailers, since they are also purchasing the same vegetables at higher prices from the wholesale markets, they are charging more to maintain their profit margin thus pushing up the price of vegetables in the retail markets,” the member of the task force said.

However, he added, the task force members are not ruling out the possibility of a section of the vegetable traders taking advantage of the prevailing situation and resorting to hoarding.

He said that we expect the vegetable prices in the retail markets to stabilise with the arrival of a full-fledged monsoon.

With PTI Inputs