In a move aimed at alleviating the burden on consumers and curbing excessive profits by intermediaries, the central government on Monday commenced selling tomatoes at a subsidised rate of Rs 65 per kg in Delhi. This comes as the price of tomatoes in the national capital has surged and are being sold at an average rate of Rs 90 per kg in the market.
To facilitate the sale of tomatoes at lower rates, the National Cooperative Consumers' Federation of India Ltd (NCCF) has deployed mobile vans across the city. The scheme was officially launched by Consumer Affairs Secretary Nidhi Khare, who flagged off the NCCF vans. "We are trying to moderate the prices of tomatoes. With this market intervention, in the next 3-4 days prices of tomatoes will come down," Khare told reporters, as per news agency PTI.
NCCF intervenes to control tomato prices
NCCF has initiated a market intervention by directly procuring tomatoes from mandis and selling them at a subsidised rate of Rs 65 per kg. Mobile vans would sell tomatoes at 50 colonies in the national capital. The intervention is to protect consumers from the recent increase in tomato prices and prevent windfall gains for intermediaries, according to a statement. "The retail price of tomatoes has seen an unwarranted increase in recent weeks despite continuous arrival in mandis in good quantities. Rains and high humidity due to prolonged monsoon in major producing states such as Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra are reported to have led to quality concerns in recent weeks," the Department of Consumer Affairs said.
Role of intermediaries in price rise
The possible role of market intermediaries in the current price rise in this high-demand festive season may not be ruled out, it added. The NCCF is also continuously supplying onions from the government buffer at Rs 35 per kg to retail consumers in major cities across the country. Khare also said that the department is importing pulses from Myanmar and chickpeas from Australia. In the national capital, the average price of potato is Rs 40 per kg and onion Rs 58 per kg. The all-India average price of potato is Rs 36.89 per kg, onion Rs 54.36 per kg and tomato Rs 64.72 per kg on Monday, according to the government data.
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