Tomato exports to Pakistan drop by 50 percent as prices rise in India

There have been demands were generated by some associations in India urging government to put ban on Attari-Wagah-based traders to stop sending tomatoes to Pakistan

Traders in Amritsar,Punjab, state said on Thursday that the export of tomatoes to Pakistan has gone down by 50 percent due to rising prices and unseasoned rainfall in India.

"Tomato prices, due to unseasonal rainfall, are high in India this year. Exports to Pakistan, which is the usual phenomena every year, this is the peak season for exports into Pakistan but this year due to high prices in India, the exports are down by almost 50 percent and the reason being is the high prices of tomatoes in India," said the president of the Amritsar Exporters Chamber of Commerce, Rajdeep Utpal.

Recently, there were demands generated by some associations in India urging government to put ban on Attari-Wagah-based traders to stop sending tomatoes to Pakistan.

However, the traders claimed that they were only executing the pending orders and no fresh deal has been made.

"The orders which are being exported to the neighbouring border are the old orders, which are being completed. In the tomato trade, the tomatoes come from Nashik,Maharashtra, which will take four to five days to come to Amritsar and it takes a day more to reach Pakistan. So these are the previous orders. The new orders are put on hold as the tomato prices in India are high. In another two to three days the old orders will be finished," said a trader, Manav Taneja.

About 40-50 trucks laden with tomatoes are crossing over to Pakistan via Attari-Wagah land route every day in the wake of poor crop output in Pakistan.

Besides tomatoes, India also exports other vegetables, including green chilly and garlic, to Pakistan via Integrated Check Post at Attari in Amritsar.

After onions, now the prices of tomatoes have shot up across India, leaving the common man in distress. According to wholesalers, the prices of tomatoes have risen by at least 35 to 40 percent due to the non-arrival of fresh stock in the festive season.

Be it any cause, price rise of vegetables have political consequences in India. During the 1998 polls to the Delhi state legislature, the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was booted out of office by the Congress party after onion prices had touched Rs. 60 per kilogram.

The escalation in prices has adversely affected the budget of the common man.

Apart from the daily wage earners, even the upper and lower middle classes are finding it hard to cook a wholesome meal of vegetables, a common ingredient of the traditional Indian kitchen.

The pace of growth in food prices in India outdid China's 6.1 percent rise in inflation, rising to an annual 18.40 percent last month, the fastest clip since July 2010.