The National Cooperative Consumers’ Federation of India Ltd (NCCF) and the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd (NAFED) have announced that they will begin selling tomatoes at a retail price of Rs 40 per kilogram from August 20. This move comes as a response to the soaring tomato prices, which in some regions had earlier reached up to Rs 80 per kg.
This also comes after the government reduced the prices of tomatoes to Rs 50 on August 15 and according to the latest directive, it has been further reduced to Rs 40.
Since last month, the NCCF and NAFED have been selling tomatoes at a discounted rate on behalf of the Consumer Affairs Ministry to contain the price rise.
Initially, the subsidised rate was fixed at Rs 90 per kilogram which had been successively reduced in line with the decline in prices in order to ensure benefits to the consumers.
“The last downward revision of the retail price to Rs 50/- per kg was on August 15, which now stands further reduced to Rs 40 per kg w.e.f. August 20,” an official statement said on Friday.
Till date, over 15 lakh kilograms of tomatoes have been procured by the two agencies and are being sold to retail consumers in major consumption centres in the country, it said.
These locations include Delhi-NCR, Rajasthan (Jaipur, Kota), Uttar Pradesh (Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi, Prayagraj) and Bihar (Patna, Muzaffarpur, Arrah, Buxar). NCCF and NAFED are procuring tomatoes from mandis in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra.
NCCF had sold 560 tonnes of tomatoes in the states of Delhi, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh in the last 15 days and the discounted rates still continue. However, retail prices of tomatoes continue to be on the higher side in major producing areas due to heavy rains and inclement weather.
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