BHUBANESWAR: Ahead of the Sabitri Brata festival, the prices of all seasonal fruits have gone up by at least 50% in the city markets. The festival, which married women observe, will be held on Monday.
Vendors said, since mango is a biennial-bearing fruit crop, this year its yield was less. Also, poor weather affected the production. “Fewer varieties of mangoes are available in market this year. The supply from other states is also poor this year. Therefore, the prices are steep,” said Kartika Swain, a mango seller in the city.
“Every year, before Sabitri Brata, fruit prices go up, but this year the hike is quite sharp. After two years of break owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, people don’t want to compromise on celebrating the festival. So they are spending extra, but the prices have just skyrocketed,” said Kalpana Jena, a homemaker.
On Sabitri Brata, married women consume fruits the entire day and worship Yamraj, the god of death, seeking long life of their spouse. As per customs, parents send fruits, new clothes and other adornments to their married daughters on the occasion.
On Saturday, most of the city markets witnessed heavy rush as buyers as people came out for the last-minute shopping for the festival. Consumers were seen puchasing variety of fruits, including mango, jackfruit, grapes, orange, palm, banana, watermelon, pineapple, jamun and ice apple. Crowds of customers were also seen at garments and other stores. Most fruit vendors expressed happiness with the huge footfall of customers in shops as they hardly could make any business in the past two years due to the pandemic.
“In 2020, people could not observe the festival due to Covid-induced lockdown. Next year, the sales dropped as people suffered from financial constraints. This year, the market has started recovering and we are happy that we could make up for the loss,” said Sukant Patra, a fruit vendor.
