From August 20, tomatoes are just Rs 40! NCCF, NAFED To Offer Discounts On Kitchen Essential

Beginning tomorrow, August 20, the cooperatives NCCF and NAFED will begin selling tomatoes at a reduced price of Rs 40 per kilogram in response to the ongoing fall in the price of the kitchen staple in wholesale and retail markets.

To stop the price increase, tomatoes have been offered at a discount by the National Cooperative Consumers’ Federation of India (NCCF) and National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd (NAFED) since last month.

In order to provide advantages to customers, the subsidised pricing was first set at Rs 90 per kilogram and gradually decreased in accordance with the fall in prices.

The retail price was last dropped to Rs 50 per kilogram on August 15, and as of August 20 it has been further decreased to Rs 40 per kg, according to an official release.

On July 14, 2023, tomatoes in Delhi-NCR began to be sold at stores at a discount. The two agencies have purchased over 15 lakh kg of tomatoes to far, and they are selling them to retail customers in the nation’s key consumption centers, according to the statement.

Delhi-NCR, Rajasthan (Jaipur, Kota), Uttar Pradesh (Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi, Prayagraj), and Bihar (Patna, Muzaffarpur, Arrah, Buxar) are some of these places.

In accordance with the Department of Consumer Affairs’ directive, NCCF and NAFED started buying tomatoes from mandis in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Maharashtra for simultaneous distribution to major consumption hubs where retail prices had increased most in the previous month.

The RBI said in its Bulletin for July 2023 that tomato prices demonstrate significant seasonal volatility but that these episodes are transient since the harvest lasts only a relatively little time.

“Several price spikes within the same year are caused by several crop cycles with variable time spans across places. Although the annual peaks have generally increased, the bottoms have mostly stayed steady, showing that prices do not ratchet higher with time,” it stated.

Due to the lean season and frequent rainfall, the retail price of tomatoes recently spiked and reached as high as Rs 250 per kg in major cities. The federal government is selling tomatoes throughout the nation at a reduced price of Rs 90 per kg in an effort to relieve customers from soaring tomato costs.

According to the most recent official statistics, higher food prices caused India’s retail inflation to soar to a 15-month high of 7.44 percent in July. Although tomato prices have started to drop, CPI inflation in August-23 may continue to be around 7%, according to Acuité Ratings & Research’s research.