UMERKOT, Oct 3: The ever-increasing prices of daily use items are forcing the people to ignore the health and well-being of themselves and their families by compromising on rotten fruits and vegetables for these are handy at cheaper rates.

Vendors deal with majority of customers either seeking essential items at cheaper rates or avoiding it altogether for their budgets don’t allow to avail such luxuries – a decent living is now a bygone thought.

A fruit vendor disclosed to Dawn that the poverty was now at the lowest ebb as people opt for low-cost fruits and vegetables. He shot back when encountered that the stuff he was selling was rotten by arguing that it wasn’t rotten but of low quality.

A school teacher, Mohammad Ali working under the NHCD and drawing Rs2,000 per month wailed that how a person with such a meagre salary can run a household which includes dry and green grocery, health care, clothing and other necessities - what to say of fruit which now was just a catchword for people like him who were in majority.

A Thari shopkeeper confessed of adulterating the commodities as according to him the poor people were unable to buy pure stuff which was a bit expensive while adulteration provides a means of survival to both customers and shopkeepers.

A medical practitioner, Dr Allahdad Rathore said that the cases of food poisoning, gastroenteritis, diarrhoea, worms infestation, typhoid, mouth ulcers and other diseases were steadily increasing because of the consumption of unhygienic food items for these are affordable for the poor section of the society in such hard times.

A worker of HANDS, an NGO, Bansi Malhi working in the health sector said that a baseline survey conducted in 2008 revealed 56 per cent of the Umerkot population was living below the poverty line which by now must have gone down further and in such a scenario these people prefer to die of disease than of starvation.