Traders claim that they have to hire paid guards to guard sacks of carrots being taken to economic centres. A trader who was present at the Dambulla Economic Center said that he had to pay 1500 rupees for a watchman used to guard the sacks of carrots. Sri Lanka Latest News
However, due to the rapid increase in the price of vegetables, the number of traders visiting the economic centres daily has decreased to less than fifty per cent.
It is also revealed that there is a racket of stealing sacks of carrots brought by farmers to some economic centres.
Yesterday (18th) too, a kilo of carrots was sold at a wholesale price between 1800 and 2300 rupees. The retail price of a kilo of carrots had gone up to 2500 rupees yesterday. Economic centre officials claim that carrot prices are likely to come down in the first week of April.
Farmers say that although carrot seed nurseries were planted in the past, many of those nurseries have been destroyed by the rains, and the carrot harvest currently being harvested is inferior. Although the wholesale price of a kilo of carrots in the market exceeds 2000 rupees, the farmers say that they buy a kilo of carrots from the farms at a price between 800 and 1000 rupees.
