Tomatoes are leading the upward spiral of the vegetables, with its prices crossing the Rs 100 mark. Surely not Ache din for consumers across Tamil Nadu, who are getting shock after shock at their every visit to the friendly neighborhood vegetable vendor.

Koyambedu vegetable market, the largest wholesale vegetable market in Tamil Nadu, is reporting that against a demand for 150 trucks a day only 40 truck loads of tomatoes are arriving, leading to a severe shortage and hence spike in prices. It is not just in Tamil Nadu, in entire South India the tomato prices are hitting the roof.

Said A Selvaraj, an office bearer of the Koyambedu market association, “in the near future there is no hope of tomato prices coming down, at least after the end of August. There is a huge shortfall in production of tomatoes, unlike in previous season when farmers could not sell anything because of a glut in production and had to throw away tomatoes.

Although farmers of tomatoes are getting a relatively better price than before, it is nowhere near the commissions made by the middlemen involved in the vegetable trade, consumer activists say.

But in the retail vegetable market, it is not just tomatoes that have become dearer, the entire vegetable basket has become costlier. But not like tomatoes that gained Rs 30 per kg in the wholesale market in just a day.

The beans has also joined the Rs 100 per kg club in the retail market. Capsicsum is in the range of Rs 60 to 80 depending on the place the retail market is located.

Potatoes have crossed Rs 50 in certain retail vegetable vends and onions are hovering around 40.

Housewives are at their wits end on how to balance their budget with kitchen budget shooting up due to the severe spike in prices of vegetables, in tandem with prices of pulses that have become prohibitory.

Pulses hovering near Rs 200 mark have meant that a Rs 500 note has lost its value and does not fetch much from the market these days, lamented V Lakshmi, a housewife in upmarket Adyar.

Earlier, during the Congress regime, there was a huge hue and cry when pulses crossed Rs 70. Now they are touching Rs 200 mark and the people have gotten used to it. Or so felt another housewife, who is equally vexed at the spike in prices of essentials.