New Delhi: The Centre on Monday directed cooperatives NCCF and NAFED to sell tomatoes at Rs. 50 per kilogram, effective 15 August.
The move to reduce the price from Rs. 70 to Rs. 50 per kilogram, was in view of easing prices of the crop in wholesale markets and was set to benefit the consumer.
In the National Capital Region, the retail sale of tomatoes commenced on July 14, and till August 13, a total of 15 lakh kilograms of the crop was procured by the two agencies.
“The retail sale of tomatoes in Delhi-NCR had started from 14 July, 2023. Till 13 August, 2023 a total of 15 lakh kg of tomato had been procured by the two agencies which are being continuously disposed of to the retail consumers in major consumption centres in the country,” said a government release.
These locations include Delhi-NCR, Rajasthan (Jaipur, Kota), Uttar Pradesh (Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi, Prayagraj) and Bihar (Patna, Muzaffarpur, Arrah, Buxar), it added.
The retail price of tomatoes procured by NCCF and NAFED was initially fixed at Rs. 90 per kg and later reduced to Rs. 80 per kg from 16 July, 2023 and then further to Rs. 70/- per kg from 20 July 2023. The latest reduction to Rs. 50/- per kg will further benefit the consumers.
Over the past few days, NCCF had substantially increased the quantity of tomato supplied to the retail consumers by stationing its mobile vans across 70 locations all over Delhi, and 15 locations in Noida and Greater Noida. In addition, NCCF is also continuously doing retail sale of tomato through the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) platform.
Earlier, the consumer affairs department had directed NCCF and NAFED to procure tomatoes from the mandis in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra for simultaneous disposal in major consumption centres where retail prices had risen the most in the past month.
