Vegetables Price Pinch: 29% Indian households reduced green vegetable consumption to cope with price rise, as per survey

In a survey about how rising prices of vegetables and essentials are hurting Indian households, it has emerged that 1 in 2 Indian households are now paying Rs 75+ per kg for tomatoes, Rs 50+ per kg for onions and Rs 40+ per kg for potatoes.

As per the survey done by LocalCircles, as many as 29 per cent of them said that they have kept consumption the same but buying from sources that sell at lower prices.

Vegetable prices have spiked in most cities due to disruption in supplies and damage to several crops.

While the summer monsoon is over, adequate supplies of many crops like onion, tomato, green leafy vegetables are not arriving in the wholesale markets, leading to higher-than-normal prices in the retail market

Because of this, the central government through state-owned organisations is providing subsidised onions in cities like Delhi. 

The cost of a home-cooked vegetarian thali surged 11 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) in September, driven by rising vegetable prices, rating agency Crisil Ltd said in a report. 

It states that the rise in the vegetarian meal cost can be attributed to sharp increases in the prices of key vegetables, including onion, potato and tomato, which account for around 37 per cent of the cost.

“Vegetable prices displayed mixed trends in September. Onion prices surged by 53%, potatoes by 50% and tomatoes by 18% on-year due to lower onion and potato arrivals and heavy rainfall impacting the tomato output in Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra,” the Crisil report states.

As per LocalCircles, the survey received over 40,000 responses from households located in 351 districts of India. 

63 per cent respondents were men, while 37 per cent of them were women. 

40 per cent respondents were from Tier 1, 7 per cent from Tier 2 and 33 per cent respondents were from Tier 3 cities.

Annual retail inflation, based on the All-India Consumer Price Index (CPI), rose to 5.49 per cent in September, a nine-month high, due to higher food prices.

This is the highest retail inflation rate since December 2023, when it was 5.69 per cent. 

It was 3.65 per cent in August. 

Food inflation, which makes up half of the consumer price index (CPI) basket, rose to 9.24 per cent annually compared to a 5.66 per cent rise in August.

It stood at 5.42 per cent in July, 9.36 per cent in June, 8.69 per cent in May and 8.70 per cent in April, according to the ministry of statistics and programme implementation
(MoSPI).