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Tuesday April 23, 2024

Kitchen garden: a good option

Common people, especially housewives, feeling uneasy because of socio- economic problems planned to beat profiteers by avoiding politics and doing something fruitful. So, many of them decided before the advent of Ramazan to grow in their backyard vegetables, including lemon, onion and tomato, themselves.Salaried consumers say they can’t bear any

By Zafar Alam Sarwar
July 22, 2015
Common people, especially housewives, feeling uneasy because of socio- economic problems planned to beat profiteers by avoiding politics and doing something fruitful. So, many of them decided before the advent of Ramazan to grow in their backyard vegetables, including lemon, onion and tomato, themselves.
Salaried consumers say they can’t bear any tension in the backdrop of high prices of many kitchen items while hoarders and black marketers take wrong advantage of soft attitude of local administration.
Dr. Shaukat gets angry whenever prices of leafy vegetables shoot up and there seems no measure to control rising prices in favour of consumers. A retired teacher of Rawal Town convinced a number of families in his neighbourhood and residents of adjacent areas in Islamabad of the necessity of growing vegetables in backyards or small garden of their houses.
He himself set an example to show others the right path to humble the horrible price hike. Anybody can grow tomato which soared to Rs70/80 the other day. Similarly, any housewife can grow lemon, coriander, mint, spinach, turnip, cauliflower, green beans and salad etc.
Lemon is in great demand in summer, especially in the holy month of Ramazan, the price of lemon skyrocketed to Rs160/180 for a kilogram in many areas of Rawalpindi and Islamabad. It came down to Rs120 the other day while quality at the most was poor.
Fruits too are beyond the reach of lower people. Banana of good quality is sold at Rs180/190 per dozen and similarly apple price went up 40 to 50 per cent when compared with the price that prevailed before the holy month.
By the way, prices of food items have been volatile for the last three years in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. “We should, therefore, change our life-style and start growing green vegetables to save ourselves from tension,” insist many housewives.
zasarwar@hotmail.com