Kolkata markets on fire after fuel-price spike, supply crunch

Kolkata: The shockwaves of the ongoing crisis in West Asia have travelled thousands of miles into the kitchens of Bengal. Across the country, fuel prices have skyrocketed by over Rs 7 per litre, triggering an immediate spike in neighbourhood markets where the prices of daily essentials and perishables are witnessing a steady rise. Sources point to a yawning gap between retail and wholesale prices, which traders attribute to a combination of higher logistics costs and a temporary production gap during the seasonal transition period.

High transportation costs have forced wholesale vegetable prices up by at least 10%-12%, and the jump is steeper at the retail level. “My daily market budget has been completely upended. Just a week ago, I bought Jyoti potatoes for Rs 12 a kg. On Sunday, the vendor wouldn’t go below Rs 15. Onions have jumped from Rs 25 to Rs 30. When price of every single vegetable goes up by even Rs 5, we have no choice but to cut down on how much we eat,” said Srabanti De, a homemaker from Chetla.

The price inflation is hitting summer staples the hardest. Pointed gourd (parwal) and okra (bhindi), which sold for Rs 30 a kg last week, now go for Rs 40-Rs 45. Premium greens and bitter varieties have become luxury items: bitter gourd (karela) has soared to Rs 110 a kg from Rs 80 while brinjal has climbed to Rs 90–Rs 100 a kg from its previous baseline of Rs 80.

“We aren’t making extra profit from this. The trucks coming from the districts are charging significantly higher freight rates because of the diesel price hike. By the time the produce reaches our stalls, much of it has spoiled in the heat, and we have to recover that loss. Customers argue with us, but our hands are tied,” said Anwar Ali, a retail vegetable vendor at Lake Market.

However, at the ground level, small-scale farmers claim they are seeing very little of this retail windfall. “The cost of operating diesel pumps for watering my fields has gone up, and fertilizers are expensive. Yet wholesalers at the local mandi are offering us nearly the same rates as before. The middleman and the transport nexus are taking the biggest chunk because of the fuel crisis. We are caught in a transition period where old crops are ending and new ones aren’t fully ready, making us even more vulnerable,” said Sukumar Mondal, a vegetable cultivator from Singur.

“As the West Asia conflict shows no sign of immediate resolution, Kolkata’s consumers are bracing for a prolonged period of inflation, proving that modern global geopolitics are now deeply intertwined with the price of a daily meal,” said Amiya Gupta, an agro-economist.