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�Cheaper� leafy vegetables becoming popular

By Staff reporter

GUWAHATI, July 12 � The local ethnic food like tender bamboo shoot, pashala, and various leafy vegetables are being rediscovered now by the consumers hit hard by the inflation.

The recent hike in the petroleum products� the government has increased the price of petrol by Rs 3.50 per litre, diesel by Rs 2 per litre and LPG cylinder by Rs 35-has compounded the woes of the common people who are complaining of high prices of all the vegetables.

All the vegetables like ridge gourd, teasel gourd, beans, brinjal etc, are sold above Rs 40 per kg by the retail traders.

In the backdrop of such a situation where consumers are fast losing their bargaining power, the local vegetables rich in all the essential vitamins and protein have come to the rescue of the general people.

At the Beltola market where indigenous men and women squat on the side of the road displaying their assortment of local vegetables, more people have been seen purchasing these vegetables. It needs to be mentioned here that the prices of all these local vegetables with medicinal properties are very cheap compared to the beans, capsicum and brinjals.

A woman vendor at the Beltola market, Dipti Basumatary said that more people have been buying the tender bamboo shoot, the core of the banana trunk, kalmou, manimuni, teetaphool etc., compared to the last couple of years. "I think it is because of price rise that general people as well as well to do people are buying the local vegetables from us," said Dipti who has been doing business for more than a decade despite the problems encountered by the woman vendors.

Dipti has been selling a reasonable size of tender bamboo shoot piece at Rs 10, a piece of the banana trunk core at Rs 5, four big bundles of kalmou at Rs 10, and the rest of the local leafy vegetables at prices which the consumer would not mind.

"The local vegetables are good sources of vitamins and have high medicinal value. If cooked in different style, even the new generation brought up on pizzas and momos will like these local vegetables," said Deepali Bhattacharya, a mother. She has been buying more of the local vegetables since the time prices of the other vegetables rose unprecedentedly.

Indigenous men and women have been selling these local vegetables across the capital city braving all odds. Ganeshguri, Beltola, Khanapara, Ulubari etc., are some of the major locations where these vendors have been doing business for decades. The problems they face while doing business are innumerable. Apart from the administrative apathy and threat from the local goons who demand money, these vendors are also exposed to security risk from insurgent groups that trigger blasts at places frequented by the common people.

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