Demonetisation has wreaked havoc on the vegetable and chicken market in the national capital region, with sales going down by at least 50 per cent.
City Spidey visited Ghazipur Sabzi Mandi, a wholesale vegetable market, to take stock of the situation.
“We accepted old currency for a few days following the demonetisation, thinking the situation would improve soon. But how long can we take these notes? Farmers and transporters are not accepting the banned currency," said Kishor Gandhi, a wholesaler. "We are procuring vegetables that have a longer shelf life or those we can sell off by the end of the day.”
Pradeep Kumar, a government-authorised agent who acts as an intermediary between wholesalers and farmers, said that the demand for vegetables had halved since demonetisation. “Retailers who earlier used to buy vegetables worth Rs 5,000-6,000 a day are hardly spending Rs 2,500-3,000 now. On an average day, wholesalers used to start at 4 am and finish by 12.30 pm, whereas these days they have to sit till late evenings in the hope of making more sales.”
However, when City Spidey spoke to Raj Singh, deputy secretary of Ghazipur Sabzi Mandi, he said prices had been affected only marginally by demonetisation and had fallen primarily due to arrival of fresh vegetables. “I won't say that demonetisation has not affected sales, but it is not the only factor. The dip in rates is for seasonal vegetables, such as black pepper, cabbage, carrot, cauliflower, potato and radish.”
City Spidey found that the wholesale price of potato on November 1 was Rs 13/kg, as opposed to Rs 9/kg on November 23; the wholesale price of carrots was Rs 30/kg on November 1 and Rs 14/kg on November 23.
The sale of fish and chicken has also suffered but not quite as much as that of vegetables. Sahid Mohammad, a fish wholesaler in the area, said, “Our business has fallen by up to 50 per cent. We were expecting it to get better with the marriage season round the corner, but the demonetisation has got us in a soup. Our daily business used to go up to even Rs 3 lakh per day, but these days it hardly ever crosses Rs 1,00,000.”
Mohammad Akhtar Hussain, a chicken wholesaler, said, “Customers are offering banned notes even for 1 kg of chicken. My sales have fallen by 70 per cent these days.”
The sale of flowers, interestingly, is no different. Satish Rawat, a flower seller, said, “During the wedding season, I used to sell about 2 quintal flowers every day. But now sales are about Rs 600-700 per day. Even on normal days, my business used to be about Rs 1,200-1,500.”
