Andhra floods and strike fuel vegetable price rise in state

BERHAMPUR: Devastating floods in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka coupled with the transport strike across Orissa have directly affected the price of

vegetables in the state.

The prices of almost all vegetables in Berhampur have increased about 50 to 70 per cent during a week. The wholesale businessmen attributed the reason of the price rise to the transport strike in the state in the past five days as well as crops damaged due to floods in southern states like Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

"The supply of the green vegetables to Berhampur markets has dwindled due to the transport strike," said a vegetable seller. Berhampur depends heavily on farmers from different parts of Ganjam, Kandhamal, Rayagada and Gajapati districts to meet the demand. These farmers transport their produce by passenger buses. But due to the ongoing bus owners' strike, the supply has been drastically reduced. "This has hit the vegetable market hard," said Magata Pradhan, a vegetable seller at Gata Bazar vegetable market. "Not only have the daily commuters, but the vegetable consumers in the town also suffered immensely due to the bus strike," said Prafulla Kumar Padhy, an engineer.

Similarly, supply of vegetables like onions, tomatoes, cabbage and cauliflower, that regularly came in from Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, has been stopped for the past one week. It has also led to the increase of prices of vegetables.

"As onion crops were damaged in Andhra Pradesh and the supply was almost stopped from the state, we now depend on Maharastra alone," Ganjam Chamber of Commerce president Ch Rabindra Kumar said. "This has resulted in doubling the price of onions," said wholesaler Binod Sahu. The price of the onions has increased by about Rs 1,000 per quintal in a week. "When the entire country now depends on Maharastra for onions, businessmen there are being forced to increase the price," he added.