Step Aside Onion It’s Now Time For Pricey Tomato And Dal

After the Telugu states faced the staggering spike in onion rates, over the past few weeks, it has been noticed that they have been an increase in prices of tomato. The rates have gone up to Rs 50 per kg. People are importing tomatoes from Maharashtra, Karnataka and AP.

Presently, the cost of one truckload of Tomatoes come up to Rs 10,000 per truck. The government is trying to bring the prices down so that the common man or the producer is not affected by it. The rates of the tomatoes are also affected by the quality of the tomatoes. The rains have brought the quality of tomatoes down very drastically thus increasing the rates of good quality tomatoes.

After tomatoes, dal is next in line to bear the brunt of spiralling prices during the festive season.

In the last one week, the price of urad dal has increased by Rs 450-Rs 850 per quintal in the major markets of the country. Along with urad, the prices of moong, masoor and chickpeas (chana) dal have also gone up. Experts opine that pulses will be more expensive because the urad crop has suffered in Madhya Pradesh due to the incessant rain. At the same time, sowing of pulses has also been estimated to be less in this Kharif season than last year. Rajni, a resident of Delhi's Mandawali area, said that after the spike in vegetable prices, she used to manage with potatoes and lentils as the prices were low, but now pulses have also become expensive. Earlier, chickpeas (chana) was available at Rs 55-Rs 60 per kg, but now it has gone up to Rs 65-Rs 70 per kg while chickpea lentils (chana dal) is at Rs 90 per kg. Mumbai's Amit Shukla, a pulses market expert, said that there was a rumour in the market on Tuesday that the government is going to impose a stock limit on pulses for wholesale and retail traders, which led to a one-day fall in the prices of all pulses. But for the last one week, the prices of gram, moong and lentils have been going up.