On Wednesday, the price of tomatoes went down by as much as Rs 10 per kg, while potatoes have become cheaper by Rs 3 per kg, compared to a week ago. [break]
Prices of seasonal vegetables like green peas, broccoli, bottle gourd, cabbage, carrot, onion (green), brinjal, and local cauliflower, among others, also recorded Rs 4-10 per kg drop over the past one week.
Geeta Prasad Acharya, a vegetable wholesaler, said big tomato was sold at Rs 25 per kg on Wednesday, whereas a week ago it was priced at Rs 35 per kg. Likewise, the price of small tomato also dropped to Rs 16 from Rs 25 per kg over the week.
The price of white potato fell to Rs 15 from Rs 17 per kg, while red potato has dropped to Rs 17 from Rs 20 per kg over this period. Similarly, local cauliflower was priced at Rs 11 per kg, down by Rs 4 compared to a week ago. Cabbage also cheaper by Rs 2 and sold at Rs 10 per kg.
Green peas became cheaper by Rs 2 and were traded at Rs 33 per kg, while the price of bottle gourd dropped to Rs 29 from Rs 33 per kg.
"As the off-season rain forced the farmers to sell their vegetables, daily supply of vegetables at the Kalimati market has jumped to around 700 tons over the last few days," said Acharya. While the supply is some 150 tons higher than normal daily supply, which stands at around 550 tons, the lack of storage facility has forced the wholesalers to sell off all the vegetables every day. "This fundamentally led to the price drop," he said.
However, the prices of leafy vegetables such as spinach leaf, mustard leaf, fenugreek leaf and cress leaf have remained constant in the wholesale market over the past one week.
"If there had been no rain, the prices of leafy vegetables would have gone up by now. But thanks to the rain, more supply entered the market causing the prices to stabilize," said Sanu Shrestha, a trader exclusively dealing with leafy vegetables.
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