Chennai: Flowers, veggies end up in trash at Koyambedu

     

    Tonnes of unsold Chrysanthemum flowers dumped at Koyambedu flower market turn into a seat                                                         for the neighbourhood watch dog.

CHENNAI: About 75 tonnes of flowers and vegetables went to waste at the wholesale market in Koyambedu follwing poor demand. While the wholesale market received an excess of chrysanthemum on the eve of Diwali, continuous rain and low footfall led to wastage of the flower. The number of flowers and vegetables that got rotten was also high, compared to other days.

According to market sources, the Koyambedu market received collectively about 900 tonnes of chrysanthemums on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, after prices of the flower spiralled on Wednesday.

S Mookaiah, president of Chennai Koyambedu Flower Traders Association said the rate of chrysanthemum increased to nearly 30 on the eve of Diwali.

"The price hike created an interest and led to diversion of chrysanthemums from Salem and Hosur, besides Kadapa in Andhra Pradesh that were meant for other places to the city market. But, the rates suddenly dropped to Rs10 per kilogram in the past two days as there were few takers," he said.

With the demand mostly for jasmine, the following two days spelled doom for chrusanthemum farmers. "We had an excessive supply of chrysanthemums due to the volume of yield, but the demand was low," he said.

On Saturday, vendors were seen dumping tonnes and tonnes of crates containing chrysanthemum at the Koyambedu Wholesale Market Complex (KWMC).

The wholesale price of the chrysanthemum that was wasted is about 5 lakh, which would have sold at least three times its cost in the retail market. Vendors can make garlands of roughly 10ft with just 1kg of the flower.

At the vegetable section in Koyambedu, 25 tonnes of vegetables, largely cucumber and pumpkin, went to the waste. The volume of vegetables that landed in the garbage was high when compared to other days.

While its wholesale cost is 1.45 lakh, the retail price is worth at least 3.5 lakh. S Chandran, secretary of Federation of Wholesale Vegetable Market Associations at Koyambedu said cucumber and pumpkin went bad due to rain.

"The number of visitors to Koyambedu had decreased in the past few days. Cucumber and pumpkin alone accounted for about 20 tonnes of the vegetables that were wasted," he said.

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