ISLAMABAD, May 13: With the approach of the summer, the seasonal fruits have started arriving in the markets but the prices of these fruits are quite high despite the fact that the first arrival of water melons, peaches and mangoes do not have the desired taste.

“Apart from the fact that there is still some time for mangoes and peaches to ripe but the rains and cold wind have also slowed their ripening,” said Rizwan Farooq, a dealer at the wholesale fruits and vegetables market, Islamabad.

However, the rains making the nights cooler than what is traditionally in May, has helped the sufficient supply of winter vegetables including reddish, beetroot, spinach, turnips etc to the markets.

“Besides from the local farms, most of these vegetables are coming from the Hazara division,” said Haider Ali, a seller at Peshawar Mor Sunday bazaar, who also grows vegetables near Taxila.

On the other hand, the supply of muskmelon has significantly improved in the markets, coming from surrounding districts and the dealers were willing to sell it at even less than the prescribed rates at the weekly bazaars in Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

Compared to the official price of Rs45 per kilogram, many sellers were yelling at the top of their voice offering muskmelons at Rs40 per kilogram, while some with smaller pieces were even making calls to give three kilograms for Rs100.

“The supplies are abundant across the country and more varieties are expected on daily basis while we cannot hold the stock for long,” said Muhammad Ramzan selling muskmelons at Rs35 per kilogram, “The supplies from Potohar and Khyber- Pakhtunkhwa (KP) will be here in coming days and the price will ultimately fall,” he said.

But the supplies of other summer fruits was still not in huge quantities as a result the peaches were being sold at around Rs100 in Commercial Market, Rawalpindi and some mid-level markets of Islamabad.

Even at the weekly bazaars organised by the city government, Rawalpindi and the Capital Development Authority (CDA) the peaches were being sold at Rs80 per kilogram.

Similarly, watermelons were as high as Rs50 in some markets of the twin cities but the average market rate was Rs30 per kilogram which was still high for this fruit and it was Rs20 per kg at the weekly bazaars.As the peak harvest has yet to arrive, there are limited number of roadside stalls selling water melons, as compared to the stalls that were established in the first week of May last year.

“There are more rains and thunderstorms this year and the mercury drops significantly at night nowadays which is not good for water melons,” said Gul Nawaz, a roadside stallholder in I-8, Islamabad.

Like the muskmelons, the price of water melons will also decline in coming days not only due to higher supplies but also with the availability of other fruits like peaches, plums, mangoes, cherries and the list continues for the summer varieties if the local ones like jaman and falsa are included.