SURAT, Aug 5: Supply of vegetables and their prices are expected to return to normal only after Monday, though the five-day-old strike over the State government's decision - in keeping with the Gujarat High Court directive to that effect - to shift the burden of market charges to purchasers from farmers was totally withdrawn on Wednesday.Retail vendors withdrew the strike late on Monday night, but commission agents, in a complete turnaround, claimed on Wednesday that they were not agitating at all. As many as 85 licensed agents submitted a memorandum to this effect to the chairman of the Agricultural Produce Market Committee, seeking to be allowed to operate from the new market yard.The committee, which had locked the main gate of the old Sardar Market, apparently to safeguard the vegetables accumulated inside, opened it around 3 a.m. to allow traders to sell the stock. If traders were to be believed, the vegetables inside the market would have become unusable if not disposed of within 24 hours. Thus onions went for Rs 15 a kg and potatoes at Rs 8.50 a kg, the wholesale rates, at various places in the city for the first time since August 1.Including about 800 quintals of potatoes and 225 quintals of onions, 500 to 600 tonne vegetables of all varieties arrived in the main market on Wednesday.Farmers selling vegetables on their own at various points, meanwhile, took out a rally from Chhatrapati Shivaji's statue at Sahara Darwaja to the new market yard and submitted a memorandum seeking early implementation of the Gujarat High Court directive.The memo said that besides expensive seeds, pesticides and manure, farmers also had to spend on irrigation and labour. If transportation cost for carrying vegetables to the market was added, farmers would end up paying more than what they got from the sale of vegetables. Farmers were bearing losses by paying market charges, the memorandum observed, demanding that if the High Court directive was not implemented by August 15, they would violate market committee rules and start selling vegetables in the open market.APMC chairman Raman Patel (Jani) said more and more traders were coming around to the idea of shifting to the new market. Their licenses to operate from the old market expire on September 30.
