The ‘ban’ on the entry of vehicles, including trucks and good carriers, from Tamil Nadu has hit vegetable farmers in the region hard.
Mysore, which is the major supplier of vegetables to Tamil Nadu and Kerala, has not sent vegetables to these states for the last one week. About 100 trucks carrying vegetables used to leave Mysore every day for Erode, Salem, Coimbatore and other districts of Tamil Nadu, and several places in Kerala.
The trucks that left for Ooty from Mysore recently returned as the police manning border check-posts did not allow them to proceed, fearing that the inter-state vehicles might be attacked by Cauvery protesters. However, a few vehicles managed to go to Kerala from Sultanbathere.
The Cauvery agitation has made the price of tomato crash to `2 a kilo in Mysore. Beans, ladies finger, radish, beetroot, cabbage and drumsticks are sold for less than `10 to `12 a kilo.
Potato is sold at `20 a kilo, and the price is likely to fall further in the next couple of days as supply to Mettupalyam market is stopped.
Marigold farmers in Mandya, Mysore and Chamarajanagar are a worried lot as they could not send their produce to essence factories in Sathyamangalam in Tamil Nadu.
The strike is also likely to hit transportation of elakki banana to Tamil Nadu. Similarly, the loaders at the market are also worst-affected as they could not work for days now.
This may see a steep increase in prices of vegetables in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Shivanna, a broker at the regulated market, said
he feared that prices of vegetables would fall further if the Cauvery agitation continued.
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