vadodara double the price of petrol and diesel pricey tomatoes are a rarity in vegetable baskets in homes but residents of balpura a village in panchmahal are spicing up their curries with the fruit dailydespite the prices of tomatoes skyrocketing 200 students and nine staffers of the primary school have insulated themselves from the price rise the school as well as the 209 families are now atmanirbhar and dont think twice before using tomatoes in the kitchen be it for the midday meal in the school or their homesthe balupura government primary school started growing tomatoes when prices shot up in the market last month the kitchen garden of the school has been developed as an environment laboratory but this selfreliance wouldnt have been possible without teacher mukesh mehra who spent from his own pocket to buy and distribute saplingsi have been working in the environment laboratory for the last five years we grow different vegetables there but since tomatoes had become very costly i decided to grow them in the space provided to us for the kitchen garden said mehra an assistant teacherhe bought 1000 saplings for rs 2000 from a local nursery and distributed four to five to every student and school stafferthey nurtured the plants near their houses and pots mehra said each plant can bear 10 to 15 kg of tomatoes in about six months a family can get 34 tomatoes every day from the plants that they nurture this is sufficient for their daily needs we also get regular crops from the 30 plants we have in our school and this is used for the midday meals he saidvishal patel a student said he was getting at least two or three tomatoes every day from the five plants in his school we dont have to buy tomatoes from the market now he saidinterestingly the students are also aware of the high tomato prices and understand about savings they make by growing tomatoes at home i know that the tomatoes cost around rs 150 to rs 200 per kg in the market i have five plants and they give us six to seven tomatoes every day said another student hina patel