Time to ignore tomatoes, onions; say Vizagites

VISAKHAPATNAM:  Fed up with enormous increase in prices of vegetables and long queues at rythu bazaars, middle class consumers of Visakhapatnam have decided to give up some food items altogether, mostly non-veg, tomatoes and onions; till the prices return to normal.

The skyrocketing vegetable prices are making Vizagites recall onions selling for Rs 200 a kg in 2019 December. Currently, onions are priced Rs  55 per kg in open market and Rs 38 in rythu bazaars. While tomatoes are selling for Rs 44 per kg at rythu bazaars, they are priced '70 in some markets within posh localities.

“Why not avoid chicken, fish, tomatoes and onions for some days,” observes Karra Jhansi Rani of East Point Colony, who teaches in a corporate school of Visakhapatnam. She has shared the suggestion of a star hotel chef that cabbage or lettuce be used in place of onions, which would give the same flavour and taste.

Health worker P. Mani said she has reduced use of onions as she finds them very expensive. “I am using one onion in place of four for cooking half a kg of chicken,” she says.

Amid such gloom comes marketing deputy director Papa Rao’s forecast that prices of onion will go up further, as their stocks are depleting in Maharashtra markets. He said as on date they are selling 20 tonnes of onions every day for Rs 38 per kg in 13 rythu bazaars of Vizag.

Top wholesale merchant V. Sattibabu, who imports 20 tonnes from Shirdi area of Maharashtra regularly, says prices may ease only after Diwali.