Consumers, too, could appreciate the change. Besides the seven mobile shops set up by the Civil Supplies Corporation and 50 fair price shops selling onions (at Rs 9/kg) and potatoes (Rs 8.50/kg), farmers sold their produce at comparatively low prices too.

Brinjals, gourd, lady's fingers, cabbage, cauliflower, turia, karela, tindola, which had almost disappeared from the markets for the past few days and sold for more than Rs 15/kg on Tuesday, went for less than Rs 8 on Wednesday. This was evident during a spot visit to the Khanderao Market area in the afternoon.

Though several quarters of the city continued to complain about the high prices of vegetables, the scene was different in Khanderao market, Gorwa, Navayard, Sama road, Fatehgunj, Fatehpura, Karelibaug, Wadi and City wards. As many as 23 such points in city transformed into miniature Khanderao markets, stocking all types of vegetables at nominal prices. Such was the demand that some farmers exhausted their stock in less than an hour.

Apparently wiser after Tuesday's poor response from farmers, district collectorate and committee officials had approached select pockets of Padra and Vadodara rural talukas early this morning to organise the transportation of vegetables.

According to District Supply Officer Ashok Singh, at least 60,000 kg of vegetables were sold on Wednesday. A similar claim came from Yeshwant Barot, secretary of the Agriculture Produces Marketing Committee, who said the situation would improve further from Thursday.

Sukhdevbhai Kachhia-Patel, vice-president of the State-level federation of all vegetable markets unions, however, reiterated his demand for revocation of the fiat asking them to retrieve their commissions from customers instead of farmers. Claiming that the government arrangements would not last long, he said traders' stir would go on.