THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With vegetable prices burning a hole in the common man’s pocket, the Kerala State Horticultural Products Development Corporation Ltd (Horticorp) launched a market intervention exercise on Monday to check price rise. The Horticorp has started supplying vegetables and fruits at prices 30 per cent lower than that in the open market through its outlets in the state, Horticorp officials said in a statement. The Horticorp discount will be available mainly for beans, carrot, potato and banana. Officials attributed the sudden rise in vegetable prices to the decrease in domestic production and vegetable consignments from neighbouring states. An average Malayali’s dinner table is not exactly overflowing these days courtesy spiralling food prices. Chicken, a big favourite with the Malayali, was selling for `102 a kg in the retail market here on Monday. To know how prices are shooting up, wind back 45 days when the price hovered around `80 a kg. However, mutton has been stuck at `400 a kg for some months now. Considering fish, the better varieties such as seer fish (neimeen), are simply hard to come by these days. Fortyfive days ago, good seer fish cost `600-650 a kg. However, the price of some of the vegetables dipped somewhat on Monday, especially beans. Beans, which remained inaccessible for the common man all through last week, was sold at `65-68 a kg in the open market. Last week, the price had shuttled between `80 and `100, according to Hari, of KC vegetables, Chalai market. “Price of beans have come down because the low quality variety has come into the market. But the price of vegetables are expected to go down further in three weeks’ time,” he said. However, the price of beans 45 days back was `40 a kg.
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