Rain plays spoilsport; sharp slump in sale of fruits, vegetables to Kerala for this Onam

The Karmarajar Fruits and Vegetable Market at Pavoorchathram, which would see brisk business during Onam season every year as this tiny town largely fulfill Kerala’s demand to a greater extent, has suffered 50% business loss this year due to continuing incessant rain in the neighbouring State.

Since the areas surrounding Pavoorchathram, Alangulam and Surandai of the district are known as ‘Vegetable Basket’ of southern Tamil Nadu, the market was created at the easily accessible Pavoorchathram, which is also closer to Kerala. Besides sending vegetables to various markets of Tamil Nadu, the demand of Kerala is also being met by this market, named after late Chief Minister K. Kamaraj. Hence, the vegetable farmers of this region would sell their produce to the traders of this market.

The 28-year-old market supplies fruits and vegetables to all major towns of Kerala right from Thiruvananthapuram to Palakkad. The 135 fruits and vegetable traders of this market including 80 wholesale traders supply around 650 tonnes of fruits and vegetables everyday to Kerala, which would swell to 800 tonnes a day during Onam season every year.

The last year Onam celebrations in Kerala were mostly wiped out by the fateful landslides in Wayanad and as the cascading effect, the demand for fruits and vegetable also saw sharp slump.

“This year, the recent downpour and continuing incessant rains in Kerala has badly affected the business. Our market would send around 800 tonnes of fruits and vegetables a day during ‘Onam Season’ continuously for four or five days and hence the ‘Onam sale’ would easily cross 3,000 tonnes every year. However, this sale has dropped to just 400 tonnes a day as the Kerala traders are not certain about their sale due to the continuing rain. Hence we’ve suffered 50% business loss this year,” says trader K. Kutralingam of Kamarajar Fruits and Vegetable Market.

The onion and bellary onion growers are the badly affected, the traders say. Since Onam is to be celebrated on Friday, the traders have lost their hope as there may not be much demand in the last 24 hours.