The government said today that tomato retail prices are expected to fall after increased supply
New Delhi:
The government said today that tomato sales prices are expected to fall due to increased supply of new crops from Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.
Selling prices have skyrocketed to Rs 200-250 per kilogram in various parts of the country as the supply chain was disrupted by monsoon rains and other issues.
In a written reply to Rajya Sabha, Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, said: “Tomato prices are expected to drop due to the increase in the arrival of new crops from Nashik, Naryangaon and Aurangabad in Maharashtra and also from Madhya Pradesh.” He said the “current rise in tomato prices may encourage growers to produce more tomatoes, which is expected to stabilize prices in the coming months.”
Choubey attributed the recent rise in prices to a combination of factors such as “seasonal effects, whitefly disease in Kolar (Karnataka), the imminent arrival of monsoon rains in the north of the country, which negatively affected the tomato crop in Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, and logistical disruptions in remote areas due to heavy rainfall.”
Responding to a question from Independent member Kartikeya Sharma, the minister said that the average daily selling price of tomato was Rs 150 per kg in Delhi, Punjab, Chandigarh and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands during the week of July 10 to 16.
On July 18, the average selling price fell to Rs 130 per kg in Delhi and to Rs 127.70 per kg in Punjab.
To control the prices of tomatoes and make them affordable, the government has started their procurement under the Price Stabilization Fund and is making them available to consumers at a heavily subsidized rate.
The National Cooperative Consumers Federation (NCCF) and the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation (NAFED) continuously source tomatoes from ‘mandis’ in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra and make them available at affordable prices in major consumption hubs in Delhi-NCR, Bihar and Rajasthan, among others.
Tomatoes were initially sold at a retail price of Rs 90 per kg, which was reduced to Rs 80 per kg from July 16 and further reduced to Rs 70 per kg from July 20.
Until July 18, a total of 391 tons of tomatoes had been purchased for continuous sale in the large consumption centers for the benefit of consumers.
The Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (DAFW) is implementing a Market Intervention Scheme (MIS) to protect growers of perishable agricultural and horticultural products from emergency sales in the event of a record harvest during the peak period when prices tend to fall below economic levels and production costs.
“Under the scheme, the loss due to the fall in prices will be borne between the central government and the state government on a 50:50 basis.
“Since the inception of MIS to date, the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare has not received any proposal from state governments for market intervention to address the emergency sale of tomatoes,” the minister said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is being published from a syndicated feed.)
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