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Afghan crisis hits herbal, dry fruit markets in Hyderabad as import stops
Hyderabad: The crisis in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover has had a big impact on the herbal medicine and dry fruit markets in the city. Imports have stopped over the last couple of weeks and whatever little is available is now being sold at exorbitant prices.
The unani (also known as Arabian medicine) pharmacists get raw materials like mulethi (licorice), wormwood, jujube, akarkara (Anacyclus pyrethrum), dried plum, zaffron, raw hing (asafoetida), pure honey and solo garlic from Afghanistan.
“Hing is used in making digestive syrups and tablets. These days medicine for cough and cold is high in demand. Raw materials used for making it are pure honey and mulethi (licorice) which has become scarce due to the crisis in Afghanistan,” said Hamin Ansari, a pharmacist.
Now they will be forced to procure honey and mulethi from Punjab, which is of lesser quality. Due to the ongoing crisis in Afghanistan, prices of each and every herbal medicine have seen an upward trend by around 5% to 8 %. “If the situation does not improve, another steep price hike and even some shortage cannot be ruled out. We hope that the situation will improve in a few weeks,” said Ahmed Khan, a herbal store owner.
The situation is similar for the dry fruit traders as they panic over the stranded import of items. Afghanistan exports dry fruits including dried raisins (kishmish), walnut (akhrot), fig (anjeer), pine nut (chilgoza), pistachios, dried apricot (qubani), almonds, cashew, spices and medicinal herbs. It is the only source of apricot and dried fig.
“In the last two weeks, there has been about a 50% hike in the price of dry fruits. Almonds are now being sold at ₹600 per kg. It was sold at ₹400 sometime ago. Price of pistachio has been hiked by ₹100 per kg and figs by ₹200 per kg,” said Kapil, owner of the popular dry fruit store Kashmir House.
Traders lament that trading has completely stopped in the last 15 days.
“Usually, Afghan commodities reach India through the sea route through Mumbai. Some containers are sent via land route, through Pakistan which reach Amritsar, and will then be supplied from Delhi. We are looking forward to the government to resolve the issue as customers are becoming choosy,” Kapil added.