Chennai: Rs 1 crore fruits & vegetables dumped

Monsoon fury has forced vegetable traders to dump sixty-five tonnes of vegetables

Update: 2015-11-23 05:58 GMT

The heavy downpours and incessant rains in the city over the past fortnight have resulted in vegetables and fruits worth nearly Rs 1 crore going waste.

Chennai: The heavy downpours and incessant rains in the city over the past fortnight have resulted in vegetables and fruits worth nearly Rs 1 crore going waste. The monsoon fury has forced vegetable traders at Koyambedu to dump sixty-five tonnes of vegetables.

Traders said the dumping of vegetables has also added to the dip in sales already caused by the fact that fewer retailers and customers are turning up at the central vegetable market. All this has led to a sudden rise in prices.

“Most perishable vegetables such as potato, carrot, cauliflower and drumstick arriving from areas like Kadappa, Hosakote near Bengaluru and Salem in trucks could not be unloaded due to the heavy rains on November 13 and 14. And most of the stocks were damaged by the time they were unloaded," said V.R Soundararajan, vegetable trader and a member of the market management committee.

Nearly 30 tonnes of vegetable worth Rs 65 lakh were spoilt and had to be thrown in the waste yard, he said, adding that fruits were less affected and the estimated damage in spoilt fruits according to him was not more than Rs 30 to 40 lakhs.

Traders complain that the absence of a state-of-the-art cold storage facility capable of preserving large quantities of perishable vegetables could have averted the dumping of vegetables. "The storage facility that is under operation has less capacity and it can only store certain imported fruits such as apple, tamarind and butter oil. We hope the government would listen to our request and instal a facility before the next monsoon," said a member of the market management committee.

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Chennai: Rs 1 crore fruits & vegetables dumped

Monsoon fury has forced vegetable traders to dump sixty-five tonnes of vegetables

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