Centre starts selling tomatoes at subsidised rate of Rs 65/kg in Delhi

New Delhi: The Centre on Monday started selling tomatoes at a subsidised rate of Rs 65 per kg in the national capital to provide relief to the common man and check abnormal profits by intermediaries.

Tomatoes are being sold at an average rate of Rs 90 per kg in the national capital.

Consumer Affairs Secretary Nidhi Khare flagged off National Cooperative Consumers' Federation of India Ltd (NCCF) vans selling tomatoes at Rs 65 per kg.

"We are trying to moderate the prices of tomatoes. With this market intervention, in the next 3-4 days prices of tomatoes will come down," Khare told reporters here.

NCCF has initiated a market intervention by directly procuring tomatoes from mandis and selling them at a subsidised rate of Rs 65 per kg. Mobile vans would sell tomatoes at 50 colonies in the national capital.

The intervention is to protect consumers from recent increase in tomato prices and prevent windfall gains for intermediaries, according to a statement.

"The retail price of tomatoes has seen unwarranted increase in recent weeks despite continuous arrival in mandis in good quantities. Rains and high humidity due to prolonged monsoon in major producing states such as Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra are reported to have led to quality concerns in recent weeks," the Department of Consumer Affairs said.

The possible role of market intermediaries in the current price rise in this high-demand festive season may not be ruled out, it added.

The NCCF is also continuously supplying onions from the government buffer at Rs 35 per kg to retail consumers in major cities across the country.

Khare also said that the department is importing pulses from Myanmar and chickpeas from Australia.

In the national capital, the average price of potato is Rs 40 per kg and onion Rs 58 per kg.

The all-India average price of potato is Rs 36.89 per kg, onion Rs 54.36 per kg and tomato Rs 64.72 per kg on Monday, according to the government data.