ISLAMABAD, April 2: Although the price hike has disturbed budget of every household throughout the country, some families living in federal capital are lucky to get vegetables free of cost, it has been learnt.

The city is blessed with wild vegetables and fruits that grow in its green areas and forests benefiting many. Spring in the federal capital also brings a famous vegetable biologically named bauhinia variegata (Kachnar) due to which residents of the costliest city in the country get it without paying a single penny to anyone.

Anees Ahmed, a teenager, who was seen collecting its flowers from a tree, told Dawn that it will be served in dinner at his house after cooking.

“Kachnar is very costly in the market – as much as Rs60 per kg – and it is not possible for everyone to buy it. However there are so many trees of it in the green belts of the city that people get it free from there in spring season,” he added.

Pir Sohawa area has its trees in abundance, so a lot of people also go there to pick it besides varieties of some fruits found at the altitude and they even sell it in the city when they are done with picking them and return home, he said.

Besides it, some other vegetables are free to be had in the open fields of the city. A professor at H-9 College said that some gypsy women come to the college every now and then and cut a wild vegetable with green leaves (locally named Saag) from the institute’s ground claiming that they use it as food after cooking.

“With every passing day financial problems of the people are increasing and they are finding cheaper ways to live. So government should take some steps to address their problems otherwise a day might come when people would start eating leaves and grass,” he feared.