New Delhi: The Food and Public Distribution Department of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs today claimed that the wholesale tomato price has decreased after government intervention. Tomatoes now are being sold at a concessional rate of Rupees 90 per kilogram (kg) at several locations in the country where the prices were ruling exceptionally high, it claimed.
The Department further stated that after a re-assessment of the situation from across 500 plus points in the country, tomato prices will further go down to Rupees 80 per kg from today onwards. It added that sales have started today at several points each in Delhi, NOIDA, Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi, Patna, Muzaffarpur and Arrah through the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Limited (NAFED and the National Cooperative Consumers’ Federation of India Limited (NCCF).
“It will be expanded to more cities from tomorrow depending upon the prevailing market prices at such locations.,” the Department stated.
It may be mentioned that as the price of tomatoes soared, the Union Government stepped in on July 12, 2023, and instructed NAFED and NCCF to immediately procure tomatoes from mandis in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra for simultaneous distribution in major tomato consumption centres where retail prices recorded maximum increase in the last one month.
The government identified targeted centres for the release of tomatoes on the basis of the absolute increase in retail prices over the past month in centres where prevailing prices were above the all-India average. Key consumption centres in states having a higher concentration of the identified centres were further selected for the intervention.
States in the southern and western regions of India produce tomatoes’ surplus feed to other markets but that again depends on production seasons. It may be noted that the peak tomato harvesting season occurs from December to February.
– global bihari bureau
