September 7: The price of green vegetables has gone up by 174 percent in a week. It has been reported that the prices have gone up after the vegetables were destroyed by the continuous rainfall since a few days ago.

The prices of green vegetables including lady’s finger, bottle gourd, green beans, local cauliflower, luffa gourd, sponge gourd, brinjal and bitter gourd have gone up.

According to the daily price list of the Kalimati Fruit and Vegetable Market Development Committee, the price of luffa gourd, which was Rs 20 per kg a week ago, has risen by 174 percent to Rs 55 per kg by Saturday. The price of bitter gourd, which was Rs 25 per kg earlier, has now increased by 123 percent to Rs 55 per kg. The price of lady’s finger has increased by 120 percent from Rs 30 per kg to Rs 66 per kg.

Similarly, the price of clarified butter has also increased by 110 percent from Rs 55 per kg to Rs 115 per kg. The price of long eggplant has gone up by 100 percent from Rs 25 to Rs 50 per kg.

Gita Prasad Acharya, president of the Kalimati Fruit and Vegetable Market Entrepreneurs Committee, said that the price of vegetables have skyrocketed after the vegetables planted by the farmers were damaged due to continuous rainfall.

He informed that the traders have increased the import of vegetables from India after the locally-produced vegetables started rotting and the prices started rising. According to him, as the flow of vegetables from India has already started and the pricees will gradually go down again.

The Kalimati vegetable market used to receive 800 to 900 tons of vegetables daily. But the arrival of vegetables had dropped to 300 tons a day after the vegetables started rotting in the fields due to the continuous rainfall.

Low quantity vegetables were imported on August 28, 29 and 30. The daily vegetable arrival report of the committee has shown that 500, 300 and 400 tons of vegetables entered Kalimati on those days respectively. Although the import of vegetables has returned to its previous level since then, the prices of vegetables have not dropped yet.