Benglauru: Even as wholesale prices at KR Market remained stable, despite unseasonal rains and crop failures, retail outlets and supermarkets have jacked up their prices over the last couple of weeks citing the same reason. The jacked up prices have already reached double.

Junaid Ahmed, a vendor at KR Market, told the deccan herald, that although the unseasonal showers affected the quantity of the produce, prices have gone up only marginally, and not as much as retailers would like to claim. “We still have beetroot selling at Rs 10 and potato at Rs 15 a kilo. But it is costlier by at least by Rs 20 in other parts of the City,” he said.

Rajamma, another vendor at KR Market, said: “The produce the market gets from other states is not affected greatly. Only the produce coming from Andhra Pradesh has come down. That’s why the price has changed a bit.”

While retail vendors and supermarkets have mango priced at not less than Rs 70 a kilo, the prices of even alphonso, the costliest among the mangoes is just around Rs 50-60 at KR?Market, as against Rs 150 in supermarkets.

Farmers on the other hand have been squeezed from both sides – Shivanapura Ramesh, an agriculturalist from Devanahalli whose crops were damaged by hailstorms, said it is the merchants who have benefited from both sides. They have been purchasing produce at a lower price from farmers and selling them at a higher price by creating artificial scarcity.

“They tell us such vegetables do not find customers, and force us to sell them at throwaway prices, while on the other hand they fleece buyers by saying there is scarcity of vegetables.”