Hike in Petrol & Diesel Affects Vegetable Prices in Delhi

COVID-19 pandemic is continuing to prevail in India that is affecting daily life. Now, petrol prices are increasing due to the fall in demand which resulted in the rise of vegetables and fruit rates in the national capital. Due to the daily increasing petrol price of petrol and diesel, the transportation cost has been increasing which resulted in making food products costlier for customers, said transporters.

Delhi's Azadpur is the biggest wholesale market in Asia. Daily vegetables and fruits reach the market in the early morning using transport vehicles. Then, traders buy vegetables in large quantities and use transportation to move them to the nearby cities and even in local markets.

Moving vegetables from one place to another is important in selling the final produce. Transportation which depends on petrol and diesel when the rates are increased it results in raising the costs of vegetables. “Since transportation costs have increased recently due to the rise in petrol price, the market has become costlier. Resulting in decreasing the sale of vegetables," a vegetable seller in the Azadpur market told ANI.

The market has been uncertain from the day lockdown was implemented. At first, due to sudden announcement of lockdown resulted in a halt on movement and left markets with no vegetables to buy and left losses to farmers whose produce was stuck in godowns and in storage units.

Later sudden movement of vegetables and excessive availability in the market resulted in a fall of prices to as low as Rs 2kg for tomato which also resulted in a loss for farmers. Now, as unlock has started farmer is expecting good returns to balance the loss he saw during the lockdown. However, new rising petrol and diesel prices hiked vegetable rates which can result in a fall of demand and effect farmer profits again.

The rise of petrol prices has been continuously increased by oil companies for the last 21 days. Petrol now cost Rs 80.38 per litre while the diesel cost around Rs 80.40 per litre.