Ugadi shopping digs hole in pockets

Hyderabad: With prices of essential commodities rising, Ugadi this year will be an expensive proposition, affecting the celebrations of poor and middle-class families, especially as the government hasn’t released rations for the poor.

Ugadi is the festival of six tastes – sweet, hot, sour, acrid, salty and bitter. It is believed that eating the Ugadi pickle with these six tastes will lead to year round happiness. Jaggery or sugar, green chillies, tamarind or mango, flowers of the neem tree and salt are used for making the Ugadi pickle. Apart from this, special dishes are also prepared on the day.

Meanwhile the prices of essential commodities like toor dal, moong dal, urad dal, channa dal, tamarind, sugar, redchilli powder, green chillies and other commodities have gone up.

The price of toor dal is Rs 135 per kg in wholesale markets and Rs 159 in retail, against Rs 115 and Rs 130 last month. Similarly, channa dal has gone up by Rs 20 in the retail market, at Rs 80 per kg now. The price of urad dal is Rs 200 per kg and moong dal is at Rs 100 per kg in retail markets.

The price of fine-quality tamarind is stable at Rs 165 per kg and grade-II tamarind is at Rs 110. Green chillies, which is the most important ingredient in preparing the famous Ugadi pickle, is now selling for Rs 160 per kg in retail markets. Jaggery is costlier than sugar in retail markets. Last month, jaggery was selling for Rs 30 per kg but now it is Rs 50 per kg in retail markets and Rs  40 in wholesale.

The price of sugar has been raised to Rs 40 per kg against Rs 33 last month.
The state government would sanction additional quota of ration including sugar through ration shops for the poor with food security cards. But this time the government has not supplied sugar and other essential commodities through ration shops for the last two months, as the tenders haven’t been finalised.

Hotels, flights hard to get as rush begins

Given the long weekend ahead, resorts at holiday destinations are all full and there are no flight tickets to be had this Ugadi. Many citizens are disappointed as flight tickets to popular, cooler destinations have gone beyond their reach.

Kodaikanal, a popular summer vacation town for families is also tough to reach this year. Tickets to Madurai, that usually cost between Rs 3,600 and Rs 4,200, have gone up to Rs 8,946 due to heavy demand.

Tickets to Coimbatore, to visit Ooty, too have gone up. Similarly tickets to Kochi for visiting Munnar or Iddukki were priced at Rs 6,965 for Thursday and Friday against Rs 3,800 0n other days.