Thanks to the banda, the largest vegetable wholesale market in the country is wearing a deserted look and transactions are almost nil.
“Our old stock of fresh vegetables has begun to decay and there have been no fresh arrivals because of the strike,” Buddhi Man Shrestha, a wholesaler at the Kalimati market, told myrepublica.com on Tuesday, showing his vegetable stock. He also said the banda enforcers had restricted consumers to take even a kilogram of vegetables from the market. “We are managing to sell a negligible quantity of vegetables at night after the agitators return back from streets,” Shrestha added.
The wholesale traders have not been able to supply vegetables out of the Valley and are selling a meager quantity to local shopkeepers at cheap rates. Though the vegetable supply was nil in these three days, wholesale prices of vegetables have not changed due to low footfall of consumers because of the banda.
Shrestha, a wholesaler of potato and dry onion, said wholesale price of Nepali red potato and white potato are hovering around Rs 34 and Rs 28 per kg respectively. The price was recorded before the strike started. However, declining supplies of dry onions from Indore, one of the key onion suppliers to Nepal in recent times -- have pushed onion prices up in the market. Nepal imports more than 90 percent of onions from India.
Ranjan Shrivastav, another wholesaler, said onions are selling for Rs 36 per kg, up from Rs 34 recorded last week. “Sharp decline in onion arrivals is all set to drive up the price to Rs 40 per kg within a couple of days,” Shrivastav said. He said supplies of onions from India had dwindled by 40 percent to hardly 50 tons a day.
Likewise, wholesale price of local cauliflower has marginally increased to Rs 20 from Rs 18 per kg over the week. Prices of radish, big tomato and small tomato, however, are almost unchanged at Rs 8, Rs 15 and Rs 22 per kg respectively.
Geeta Prasad Acharya, former president of Fresh Vegetables and Fruits Wholesalers Association, said wholesalers had managed to supply hardly 20 percent of vegetables during these three days as compared to normal days. “Vegetable prices haven´t gone up this time despite three-day general strike,” Acharya said.
Arjun Aryal, director of Kalimati Vegetables and Fruits Market Development Board, said ongoing general shutdown had brought the arrivals of fresh vegetables to a virtual standstill. “Vegetable arrivals in these three days were near to nil from the average daily arrival of 400 tons,” Aryal said.
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