Summer has set in in India and with rising temperatures, prices of vegetables are soaring too. The latest of the lot is lemon, whose prices have risen to Rs 200 per kg in Gujarat’s Rajkot as per a report. This comes at a time when the common man is already battling rising prices due to inflation, with lemon being a key kitchen requirement during the summer season.
Not only lemons and other vegetables, prices of other commodities too are rising. Be it milk, fuel, CNG or domestic gas — the prices of essential commodities have seen a steep rise over the past few weeks, with common man landing in a soup amid the inflation.
“The price of lemon is touching Rs 200 per kg. It was around Rs 50-60 per kg earlier. This is affecting our ‘kitchen budget’. Don’t know when will the prices go down,” news agency ANI quoted a customer at a market as saying.
As per a recent report by Krishi Jagran, chilli, ginger, beans, garlic, cauliflower, green coriander prices have been on the rise continuously. The prices of cumin, coriander and chillies have seen a jump of 40 to 60 per cent in the recent days, as per the report.
Green coriander, which was earlier available for Rs 50-60 per kg is now selling at Rs 100 per kg, while the price of one kilogram of green chillies has increased to Rs Rs 160 per kg. The price of beans, another staple vegetable in the Indian kitchen, has reached Rs 120 per kg. Cauliflower, which was being sold Rs 40 a kg in the month of February, is now being available at double the rate in just a little over one month.
The rise in price of vegetables comes at a time when milk prices are increasing too. On February 28 this year, dairy making giant Amul announced that it was hiking milk prices by Rs 2 per litre, translating to a 4 per cent rise in MRPs. Days after that, another popular dairy maker Mother Dairy also followed suit and hiked milk prices by Rs 2 per litre.
The wholesale price-based inflation in February rose to 13.11 per cent on hardening of prices of crude oil. WPI inflation has remained in double digits for the 11th consecutive month beginning April 2021. Inflation last month was 12.96 per cent, while in February last year, it was 4.83 per cent.
“The high rate of inflation in February 2022, is primarily due to rise in prices of mineral oils, basic metals, chemicals and chemical products, crude petroleum & natural gas, food articles and non-food articles etc as compared to the corresponding month of the previous year,” the Commerce and Industry Ministry said in a statement.
One of the main reason vegetable prices are increasing so steadily is that the cost of transportation has increased. Over the last 12 days, the prices of petrol and diesel has jumped by Rs 7.20, after a four-month halt. Commodity prices are, in this scenario, expected to rise further especially with summer coming.
(With agency inputs)
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