It's tomatoes nowadays whose price is talked about. Its price has crossed 60 rupees a kg in the market. But there is one spice crop garlic whose price has shot up tremendously too.
A vegetable trader Mustafa Kamal of the Daltonganj sabzi Mandi said "Garlic is now sold at rupees 150 a kilogram. It's too expensive."
Reminded that last year the same garlic was sold for 60 or 70 rupees a kilogram and now this year its price is more than two fold high to which Kamal said "The year 2022 was economically bad for the garlic growers. They suffered losses. I understand this year many who had grown garlic last year, stopped its cultivation as a result of this price rise of the garlic."
A litti seller said "I am pressed to increase the price of litti. It is still 10 rupees a litti but with this price rise of garlic which is an indispensable spice for litti, my profit margin has shrunk considerably. I use garlic liberally in my litti."
Sources said the daily market sees a rare kind of ups and downs in prices of the eatables be it the onion or potato or tomato or the garlic. It's one or two crop every year whose price holes the pockets of the buyers.
Sources said Jharkhand is not any major garlic producing state despite its strong consumption here. Labourers consume more garlic than others. The major garlic producing states are MP, UP, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Orissa and Maharashtra.