New crop arrivals to bring down tomato prices: Govt

New Delhi: Sky-high retail prices of tomatoes are expected to begin easing due to an increase in supply following new crop arrivals from Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, the ministry of consumer affairs, food & public distribution in a statement.

“Prices of tomato are expected to come down with the increase in the arrival of new crop from Nashik, Naryangaon and Aurangabad belt in Maharashtra and also from Madhya Pradesh,” said Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Ashwini Kumar Choubey in a written reply to Rajya Sabha.

The National Cooperative Consumers Federation (NCCF) and National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation (Nafed) have been procuring tomato from mandis in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra and to make the vegetable available at discounted prices in major consuming centres in Delhi-NCR, Bihar, Rajasthan, among others, the ministry said.

“The tomatoes have been disposed initially at retail price of ₹90/kg which has been reduced to ₹80/kg from July 16 and further reduced to ₹70/kg from July 20,” it added.

The ministry said that current increase in tomato prices may incentivise farmers to grow more of vegetable, which will also help stabilise prices going ahead. The Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (DAFW) implements Market Intervention Scheme (MIS) to protect growers of perishable horticultural commodities from resorting to distress sale in the event of a bumper crop during the peak arrival period when prices tend to fall below economic levels and cost of production.

“Under the scheme, the loss on account of the fall in price is borne between the central government and state government on 50:50 basis. Since the inception of MIS till date, the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare has not received any proposal from state governments for market intervention to address distress sale of tomato,” it added.