Not onions, but tomatoes bring tears!

Tirupati: Petrol is cheaper than tomatoes in Tirupati. The prices of tomatoes or green chillies are bringing tears in the eyes of the denizens.

While petrol is being sold at Rs 112 a litre, a kg of chillies are selling close to Rs 200, and tomatoes are at Rs 150 to Rs 168 in Asia’s largest tomato market Madanapalle. In retail markets, tomatoes are selling over Rs 200 per kg.

As chilli and tomatoes are a must use in all preparations, people are demanding that the state government should organise sale of these vegetables at subsidised rates through Rythu Bazars. Farmers and traders are expecting a further hike in the next few days, thanks to the incessant rains almost in the entire state.

They also anticipate that the retail prices may go to unprecedented levels making it a scarce commodity for the common people. The Madanapalle market yard received about 360 tonnes of tomatoes on Wednesday. During the last few days, the market yard has been getting less than 500 tonnes of tomatoes while the demand is surging abundantly pushing the prices to a new level.

Adverse weather conditions were said to be the major factor contributing to the rise in prices of tomatoes and chillies. Market sources are worried over the adverse impact heavy rains on tomato crop yield.

As the demand from other districts and states has been on an ever-increasing trend, the shortages in supplies has been pushing the prices up. There has also been a huge drop in the arrivals of chillies since last month which could not meet the high demand. It was learnt that the farmers were upset with the lower prices they received during the last harvest which has forced them to shift to other crops. It may be mentioned here that the government had organised the sale of subsidised tomatoes for a couple of days but later it was stopped.