India’s food price woes are continuing, with the price of bananas now rising 60 per cent in the past two weeks, following a downturn in domestic production.
The country’s government has been wrestling food inflation for the past couple of months after the price of onions and garlic spiked toward the end of last year.
The general secretary of the Banana Merchants Association at Azadpur Market, Sudesh J Sachdev, told the Hindustan Times the banana shortage had resulted from large-scale damage to the crop in Maharashtra following unseasonal rainfall and over use of land.
According to Mr Sachdev, Delhi usually receives 251 tonnes of bananas a day at this time of year. However, it is now receiving around 50-70 tonnes, he told the newspaper.
A bi-weekly train service between Maharashtra and Delhi known as the ‘Banana Express’, which used to transport 1,512 tonnes of the fruit, was suspended because of the banana shortage, the newspaper reported.
The president of the Banana Merchants Association, Ramesh Pasandan, told the newspaper the shortage would last until the end of March when new crops would be available from Maharashtra.
