Mumbai : Prices of some of the essential vegetables like onion, brinjal, ginger, okara, tomato (hybrid), cauliflower and cabbage dropped in 2014-15 against 2013-14 in the wholesale Mandis, but their prices at the door-step of housewives rose rather sharply, highlighted the data captured by ASSOCHAM Research. Similarly, the gap between Wholesale Price Index (WPI) inflation and the level measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), has been increasing pointing towards supply chain inefficiencies and too many layers of traders and vendors.
Take for instance onion, its prices dropped by a good 32 % in 2014-15 over the previous year in the wholesale Mandis, but in the retail market these were sold at 28.9 % higher. Likewise, the retail prices of other vegetables moved in the contrarian direction to their price tags in the wholesale markets. These include ginger which increased by 16.4 % at retail, after dropping by over 18 % at the wholesale.
