Were you hoping to save on your monthly food budget this January?
If you anticipated for some saving this New Year but are left hopeless due to a recent price hike of essential daily vegetables, then blame it on the weather.
Intense cold, coupled with foggy condition and winter rain in parts of North India, has hit the transport movement and vegetable supplies, resulting in driving up wholesale and retail prices of several vegetables in Delhi and Mumbai. Light rain has also hampered growth of winter vegetables that are already in the fields.
While Delhi witnessed the foggiest December in last fifteen years, it observed the first rainy day of the year on 2nd Jan. Amritsar has been experiencing intense cold conditions due to zero degree minimum temperatures and disrupted transport due to very dense fog since the mid week of December.
Dense fog also led to cancellation and delay of trains that led to price spiral. Delay of Delhi-bound trains led to price hike in vegetables like cabbage, chili and coriander in Bhopal by almost 30%.
The unseasonal rain last week in several parts of the country hampered crops that were about to be harvested. This led to a sudden hike in prices over the last few days though this is the season when vegetables are usually cheaper.
Prices of kitchen staple like potato, tomato, pea, cauliflower and onion have risen by 20-50% due to short supply. The situation is likely to sustain for at least a week as according to Skymet Meteorology Division in India, the temperatures across North India are expected to observe a dip with unabated foggy conditions.
Supplies from Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh have fallen due to the snowfall last week. Light to moderate rain in Punjab and Delhi have hampered the transport of vegetable like onion, cauliflower, orange and cabbage.
Ram Singh, a retail vegetable seller in Noida, said, “Because of the rain, the supply of vegetables has abruptly decreased, resulting in a price spike. We’re getting vegetables from the mandi at a hike of about 20% and so we are forced to sell the vegetable at higher prices to recover our costs.”
Due to frost, dense fog and rain in past week, prices of potato have doubled from Rs 10 to Rs 30 a kg in Delhi and Noida, while onions are now selling for Rs 40 per kg against Rs 20 earlier in parts of Maharashtra.
The flavor of the season, peas, is supposedly the costliest with a price tag of Rs 50-60 per kg.
With no immediate relief from fog and low temperatures in North India, price hike is expected to continue with its infliction to the daily budget of several households across several parts of the country.
