NEW DELHI: The Centre on Monday started selling tomatoes at Rs 65 a kg across 50 locations in the national capital as the average price of the key kitchen item in Delhi-NCR crossed Rs 90 a kg ahead of the festive season. Sources said the Centre may extend this intervention to other cities soon.
Tomato prices in Delhi and its adjoining cities have doubled in past one month due to prolonged monsoon rains and high humidity in major producing states such as Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra, which have also raised quality concerns in recent weeks.
Flagging off vans of the National Cooperative Consumers Federation (NCCF), Union consumer affairs secretary Nidhi Khare said, "We are trying to moderate the prices of tomatoes through retail market intervention. With this, in the next three-four days prices of tomatoes will come down."
The consumer affairs department said retail prices of tomatoes have seen an "unwarranted increase" in recent weeks despite continuous arrival in good quantities in mandis. It added, "The possible role of market intermediaries in the current price rise in this high-demand festive season cannot be ruled out."
The NCCF has initiated the market intervention by directly procuring tomatoes from mandis and selling them at a subsidised rate.
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