Bhubaneswar, July 4: The 12-hour shutdown against fuel price hike is tomorrow. But its evil effects have started setting in a day in advance with the prices of fruits and vegetables going north.

High demand and low supply fuelled the vegetable price rise. Fewer vegetable-laden trucks reached the city over the past two days, as the drivers were reluctant to venture out apprehending road blockades and other bandh-related problems.

Owing to the dip in supply, the prices of fruits and vegetables soared by 20-25 per cent in the city markets. The innocent residents of the city had to bear its brunt.

The unit-1 daily market was overcrowded this morning, as the citizens wanted to stock fruits and vegetables due to the nationwide bandh tomorrow. But the high prices of the food items left them high and dry.

Sushma Lenka, a resident of the city, said: “Bandhs are bonanza season for vegetable vendors. They are just trying to fleece us by cashing in on the bandh. Shockingly, the government is not taking these vendors to task.”

Travelling around 17 km from Balianta on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar, Gyana Ranjan Mohapatra came to the unit-1 daily market to purchase fruits. But he returned hardly buying anything. “I could not touch the fruits because of their exorbitant prices,” he said.

Grapes cost around Rs 130 a kg today while apple touched Rs 150 per kg. Similarly, pomegranates hovered around Rs 80 a kg as against Rs 55 last week.

“The price of grapes was around Rs 70 a week ago. But it touched Rs 130 due to low supply. Fruits come Himachal Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. Fewer vehicles are coming to the town from those places these days due to the proposed bandh,” Pramod Kumar Sahoo, a fruit vendor, said.

There has been an upward trend in the prices of vegetables and fruits over the past two days. While the price of tomato was around Rs 30 per kg two days back, it cost Rs 30 today.

Similarly, brinjal was available for Rs 30 today as against Rs 24 a couple of days back. The price of green chilli also spiralled astronomically.

The vegetable and fruit vendors attributed the sharp price to the dip in supply. Tapas Kumar Dalei, the vice-president of Rajdhani Dainik Haat Byabasai Sangha, a vendors’ body, said: “Ninety per cent of the vegetables come to the city from Andhra Pradesh, Bengal, Delhi and Bangalore. Nearly, 50 trucks come to the unit-1 market here from other states everyday. But the supply of vegetables has fallen drastically in the past two days due to transportation problem in the wake of Monday’s bandh.”