New Delhi: The tomato prices continue to soar relentlessly across the country and it has now become unaffordable for the common people. Floods and heavy rain falls in many parts of the country have only made things worse. Now politics has also started over soaring prices of tomatoes and many other vegetables.
To provide relief to the people, the Department of Consumer Affairs has asked National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation (NAFED) and National Cooperative Consumers Federation (NCCF) to immediately procure tomatoes from Mandis in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra. Tomatoes will then be simultaneous distributed in major consumption centres where retail prices have recorded maximum increase in the last one month.
The stocks of tomato will be distributed through retail outlets at discounted prices to the consumers in Delhi-NCR region by Friday, this week.
Targeted centres for distribution of tomatoes identified
The targeted centres for release have been identified on the basis of absolute increase in retail prices over the past one month in centres where prevailing prices are above the All-India average. Key consumption centres in states having higher concentration of the identified centres are further selected for the distribution of tomatoes.
Southern and Western regions are surplus states
Tomato is produced almost in all the states in India, though in varying quantities. Maximum production is in southern and western regions of India, contributing 56%-58% of all India production. Southern and Western regions being surplus states, feed to other markets depending on production seasons. The production seasons are also different across regions.
The peak harvesting season occurs from December to February. The periods during July-August and October-November are generally the lean production months for tomato.
These factors lead to sudden spikes in price
July coinciding with monsoon season, adds to further challenges related to distribution and increased transit losses adding to price rise. The cycle of planting and harvesting seasons and variation across regions are primarily responsible for price seasonality in tomato. Apart from the normal price seasonality, temporary supply chain disruptions and crop damage due to adverse weather conditions etc. often lead to sudden spikes in prices.
Supplies come from these places
Currently, the supplies coming to markets in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and some other states are mostly from Maharashtra especially Satara, Narayangaon, and Nashik which is expected to last till this month end. Madanapalle (Chittoor) in Andhra Pradesh also has continued arrivals in reasonable quantities. The arrivals in Delhi-NCR are mainly from Himachal Pradesh and some quantity comes from Kolar in Karnataka.
Prices likely to come down in near future
New crop arrivals are expected soon from Nashik district. Furthermore, in August, additional supply is expected to come from Narayangaon and Aurangabad belt. Madhya Pradesh arrivals are also expected to start. Prices are anticipated to cool down in the near future, accordingly.
No comments:
Post a Comment