Govt slashes subsidised tomatoes’ price to Rs70 per kg

livemint.com:

₹70 per kilogramme from Thursday from ₹80 per kg now.  The government is selling tomatoes to people at a subsidised rate of ₹80 a kg in Delhi-NCR and some other key cities through the National Cooperative Consumers' Federation of India (NCCF) and the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED). In the national capital, the rate of tomatoes has come down to ₹120 per kg. Although, the key kitchen item is selling as high as ₹245 per kg at some places.

"The Department of Consumer Affairs has directed NCCF and NAFED to sell tomatoes at retail price of ₹70 per kg rate from July 20, 2023 in view of the declining trend in tomato prices," an official statement said. The tomatoes procured by NCCF and NAFED had been retailed, initially, at ₹90 per kg and then reduced to ₹80 per kg from July 16 2023, it added. "The reduction to ₹70 per kg will further benefit the consumers," the statement said.

On the government's direction, NCCF and NAFED had commenced the procurement of tomato from mandis in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra for simultaneous disposal in major consumption centres where retails prices have recorded maximum increase in last one month. "The retail sale of tomatoes in Delhi-NCR had started from July 14, 2023. Till July 18, 2023, a total of 391 tonnes of tomato had been procured by the two agencies which are being continuously disposed of to the retail consumers in major consumption centres of Delhi-NCR, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar," the statement said.