After tomatoes other vegetables going pricey, beans selling at Rs 240-a-kg

Bhubaneswar, June 28: A day after tomato crossed the century mark and is selling at Rs 120-a-kg at vegetable retail outlets near homes, streets and colonies across the State Capital, capsicum is selling at Rs 200-a-kg, French beans at Rs 240-a-kg, country beans (jhudanga) Rs 160-a-kg and brinjal at Rs 90-a-kg.

While the State Government has attributed the sudden rise of the prices due to the flood situation in leading vegetable producing states and especially for tomatoes, Odisha’s dependency on Karnataka, the price rise in case of brinjal still remains a mystery as it’s a locally grown vegetable. Like that, price of country beans (jhudanga) touching Rs 160-a-kg has surprised many in the Capital City.

Housewife Monalisha Tripathy said ``the sudden price rise of vegetables in an era when allmost all commodities are highly priced, would certainly affect the kitchen budget in every household.’’

Ashish Behera, a retailer in Pokhariput said ``the scanty supply and high demand has resulted in this situation as the items like tomatoes, French beans etc. are coming from other states.’’ 

Ramesh, a vegetable vendor of Unit-I Market said ``we are selling tomato at Rs 100-110 per KG at Unit-I Market as a tray now costs Rs 2,400. Earlier a tray was costing Rs 650-Rs800. With poor supplies from outside the state have forced us to raise the price and ultimately it has affected the retailers. I hope things will be normal within some days or in two to three weeks’ time.’’