Vegetable merchants follow millers’ "wholesale" example

NEW DELHI, November 20: A day after the Dal and Besan Millers Association in Lawrence Road showed the way, the Azadpur Vegetable Merchants A...

NEW DELHI, November 20: A day after the Dal and Besan Millers Association in Lawrence Road showed the way, the Azadpur Vegetable Merchants Association (AVMA) is selling vegetables at wholesale rates directly to consumers. They have pitched a tent outside the wholesale market complex.

The AVMA which is regarded as a BJP-majority forum, however, excludes onion and potato traders; the latter swear by the Congress party and are members of the Onion and Potato Merchants Association, headed by Rajinder Sharma, a former Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee general secretary.

The AVMA, of course, deny that the BJP-connection has anything do with their “concern for the public’, five days before Assembly elections in the city. Says Harbhajan Singh, president of AVMA: “Hum janseva kar rahe hain (we are doing public service)”.

Rajinder Sharma, on the other hand, says: “The BJP is behind this, my association is not involved in anyway. This is an election stunt. Everyone knows I am a Congress leader. Why doesn’t Harbhajan Singh say he is a BJP man?”

Customers, mostly from north Delhi, were, however, unconcerned about political affiliations of the traders. Because Ramesh, one of the 15 men hired by the AVMA to sell the vegetables at the tent, is announcing: “Cauliflower only Rs 8 per kg, tomato Rs 25 per kg, brinjal Rs 4 per kg, palak Rs 3, methi Rs 5, raddish Rs 2, peas Rs 12, green chilly Rs 6, carrot Rs 8, cucumber Rs 10…, take as much as you can”.

And customers like Ashok Aggarwal, from Kingsway Camp, obliged by going on a buying spree. The only disappointment for every one was that onions and potatoes were missing. “But it doesn’t matter. Usually, you can never buy a kg of any vegetable at wholesale rates. You always have to buy in bulk,” says Aggarwal.

Harbhajan Singh says the sales will continue till prices come down in the open market. A fellow trader, Balbir Singh Balla, later whispers: “At least till November 24 (Delhi goes to polls next day)”.

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And Harbhajan Singh says again: “We are doing this because we want to dispel myths that we are hoarding vegetables and are behind the increase in vegetable prices. In fact, we should have done this two months ago”.

He says this loud enough for the customers to hear him and sound their approval. So he roars: “You will get the vegetables here throughout the day, throughout the year”.

He later tells Express Newsline: “That is if the government supports us. What I mean is that the government should give us a permanent place (pointing to the area outside the market complex where the tents have been pitched) to sell vegetables.” The space inside the market — considered Asia’s largest vegetable wholesale market — is apparently not sufficient.

Yesterday, the AVMA sold vegetables worth Rs 48,000; today, till 5.30 p.m. there records showed Rs 84,000. “But we are not profiting, we don’t need to,” boasts Harbhajan Singh.