Bhubaneswar, May 21: The soaring temperature is not only pushing up the mercury but also vegetable prices.

The city is increasingly becoming dependant on vegetable supplies from Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bengal with limited local production. This is pushing up prices.

The price of cucumber has doubled to Rs 40 a kg from Rs 20 in just about a week.

Coriander leaves have touched a new high at Rs 240-a-kg. Last week, a kilogram of it was available for Rs 100.

Other major vegetables, including brinjal, tomato, beans, teasle gourd, okra, green chillies, ridge gourd, pointed gourd and cauliflower, are all selling at a higher price than the last week. Cauliflower is selling at Rs 50 a piece with the retailers while it was priced Rs 25 to Rs 30 a week ago.

Jasaswini Mohapatra, a homemaker from Shatabdi Nagar Part II said: “It’s incredible how much the prices have gone up in just about a week. With water scarcity a problem in the outskirts of Cuttack and Bhubaneswar, local production of vegetables has taken a hit.”

Santosh Kumar Sahu, one of the leading merchants of green vegetables at the Unit I Daily Market also blamed the wedding season for the price hike. “At present, the prices are high because it’s the wedding season. For example, since many weddings took place on May 12 and 13, we were short on supply and the prices suddenly went up. However, we stocked up seeing the high demand and the price came down somewhat,” he said.

Since major vegetables such as pointed gourd, teasle gourd, tomato, green peas, beans and brinjals are brought from other states, freight charge come to around Rs 5 to 7 a kg. This increases the base price at the wholesale market.

Sahu also hinted that this price hike was just the beginning because if the heat wave-like condition prevails, the local supplies will go down further by the end of June. The situation will only improve once the monsoon rains starts.

President of the Unit-I Daily Market Association Gayadhar Swain said: “The cultivation of vegetables in the state and especially in the outskirts of the city is not looking very good because the real-estate business is eating up all cultivable land around here. Since we are depending on other states and distant corners of Odisha, the base-level price remains on the higher side.’’

The city consumes nearly 250 tonne of vegetables a day. With the marriage season on, demand for products such as cauliflower, capsicum, beans, cucumber, coriander leaves and brinjal is high.

“A new crop takes 75 to 90 days to become market-ready. Since the Met department has predicted a good monsoon this year, there could be a better yield in local areas and prices may come down then,” said Swain.