Srinagar market traders have increased prices of fruit and vegetables seemingly randomly. According to consumers, prices of kitchen staples like potatoes, tomatoes, peas, cauliflower and onions have been increased by 20-50% due to short supply from outside the valley.
Some shoppers claim shopkeepers are taking the advantage and are increasing the rates by their own. They said there has been an tremendous increase in prices in the past 7 to 8 days, but the concerned authorities have failed to check the markets.
Abdul Rashid, who sells vegetables at Batamaloo, said that because of rains and snowfall, the supply of vegetables has abruptly decreased, causing the price spike. “We usually take vegetables from the Parimpora fruit mandi but vegetable merchants have increased the rates from 10 -15%. We are forced to sell the vegetable at higher prices to recover our costs.” he said.
People point to the fact that the government has no regular control squads in markets. It spoke to a senior official at the Food Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs (FCS&CA), who said that the department is quite inadequately staffed to deal with the situation.
