As prices soar, some vegetables are disappearing from people’s plates

With prices soaring, several vegetable varieties have vanished from people’s plates. Many are changing the way they cook eschewing onions and tomatoes. Across the country, restaurants are tweaking their menus in order to defend their margins.

The skyrocketing vegetable prices are impacting kitchens across India, businessline found out when it spoke to homemakers, restaurateurs and vendors. Though in different regions, it’s different staples that are getting impacted.

Kamla, a homemaker, in Delhi, said fresh vegetables have become unaffordable... so, it is economical to cook without tomatoes and onions. In Delhi, the prices of these are touching around ₹85 per kg and ₹60 per kg respectively.

No Aloo Gobhi

‘Aloo-Gobhi’ – a North Indian favourite is rarely seen on the menu these days as cauliflower prices are touching ₹200 per kg. Salads are a luxury, say people with cucumber selling at around ₹90 per kg.

Seasonal favourites French beans and capsicum are retailing at ₹200 per kg and ₹100 per kg respectively, forcing many home to switch to gram flour based curries.

Priyanka Prasad, a homemaker from Mulund, Mumbai, says their eating habits have changed as a result of skyrocketing prices. “I used to put a lot of tomatoes in my dishes which I have now reduced. I am also looking at using canned tomatoes or puree which is slightly cheaper. Prices of vegetables have been going up over the past year, which has caused me to change our food habits,” she laments.

Restaurant owners and food stall vendors are a worried lot. Vijay Shah who runs a food stall in Kandivali says he is reducing the thali size. “We cannot change our thali prices but we have had to replace vegetable items with grams and pulses in the thali. Earlier our thali would have at least two vegetable items but now we are giving only one,” he said.

Meanwhile, in Telangana, especially in urban areas, prices of red gram, green gram, and groundnut have gone up by 10-15 per cent year on year. While the price of red gram went up to ₹220 a kg as against ₹160-170 last year around the same time, the price of green gram increased to ₹150 ( ₹130) and groundnut to ₹180-200 from ₹160 a kg last year.

Further, prices of vegetables too have witnessed an increase of 10-15 per cent over last year’s prices. Beans are priced at ₹100 per kg as against ₹80 per kg in the previous year.

However, prices of tomatoes witnessed a sharp decline year-on-year. “We used to sell tomatoes at ₹180 last year. Now, it is priced at ₹30),” according to a vegetable vendor in Hyderabad.

Prices of edible oil fell sharply to ₹120 from ₹220 a year ago.

Bhartiya Kisan Sangh (BKS) has attributed the sudden spike in vegetable prices to heavy rains and the destruction of crops.

Who’s to blame?

According to Swaroop Reddy of BKS, it is not advisable to blame anyone, it happened “because of extreme summer, leading to a shortage of water, followed by heavy rains, which damaged crops.”

Reddy observed that the government has not fixed vegetable prices, therefore farmers are not keen on cultivating but disposing of their land instead. “If a vegetable costs ₹10 per kg today, tomorrow it could be ₹100 per kg. The price of all vegetables and crops is increasing because the number of farmers is low,” he said.

Contrary to other cities, in Bengaluru, vegetables have become affordable. Padmini, a resident of Vijaynagar said tomatoes are being sold at ₹20 per kg here. “Some vegetables and fruits have become more affordable. During summer, they are very expensive. Beans,which would cost ₹200 per kg, are now ₹30 per kg. Tomatoes are being sold at ₹20 per kg,” she said.