Amid soaring prices, the Central government has directed two cooperatives — National Cooperative Consumers’ Federation of India (NCCF) and National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED) — to sell tomatoes at retail price of Rs 70 per kg from Thursday.
In a statement, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs Food and Public Distribution said, “The Department of Consumer Affairs has directed NCCF and NAFED to sell tomatoes at retail price of Rs 70/- per kg rate from 20th July, 2023 in view of the declining trend in tomato prices.”
“The tomatoes procured by NCCF and NAFED had been retailed, initially, at Rs 90/- per kg and then reduced to Rs 80/- per kg from 16th July, 2023. The reduction to Rs 70/- kg will further benefit the consumers,” said the statement issued on Wednesday.
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The statement said, “It may be recalled that on the direction of Department of Consumer Affairs, NCCF and NAFED had commenced the procurement of tomato from mandis in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra for simultaneous disposal in major consumption centres where retail prices have recorded maximum increase in last one month.”
“The retail sale of tomatoes in Delhi-NCR had started from 14th July, 2023. Till 18th July, 2023 a total of 391 MT of tomato had been procured by the two agencies which are being continuously disposed of to the retail consumers in major consumption centres of Delhi-NCR, Rajasthan, UP and Bihar,” it said.