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Informist, Friday, Mar. 21, 2025

 

NEW DELHI –  The Centre has expanded its procurement of tomatoes to states beyond Madhya Pradesh in a bid to support their prices, which have fallen sharply in recent weeks due to higher production, a senior official of the agriculture ministry told Informist. The Centre has been procuring tomatoes in Madhya Pradesh under the Market Intervention Scheme and selling them in markets like Delhi to support prices.

 

Under the scheme, the Centre bears the cost of transportation and storage to increase the supply of perishable tomatoes and bridge the price gap between tomato-producing and non-producing states. While the implementation of the scheme announced in February had only been for the transportation of tomatoes from Madhya Pradesh, the government has now expanded it, the official said.

 

The government is using agencies like the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd. and the National Cooperative Consumers' Federation of India Ltd. to transport tomatoes from Andhra Pradesh to Hyderabad and from Shivpuri in Madhya Pradesh and Durg in Chhattisgarh to Delhi. 

 

"We are intervening in small quantities and procuring about a few 100 tonnes each time via the agencies. While NAFED is being used for procurement in Andhra Pradesh, we are using NCCF for procurement in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. This is ensuring that prices don't slide below the cost of production," the official said. 

 

While the government had approved procurement of tomatoes from Odisha as well, they could not be lifted due to the quality of tomatoes being produced there, the official said. "The tomatoes in Odisha are such that they would not be able to sustain the transportation. We had to decide against procuring it," the official said. 

 

The procured tomatoes are being sold in wholesale markets of Delhi and Hyderabad at INR 1-2 per kg higher than the procurement price. "While prices in the wholesale markets (of producing states) have fallen to INR 10-11 per kg, we are selling them at INR 13-14 as prices remain elevated in markets of non-producing states. This helps us to recover our transportation costs," the official said. 

 

All-India average prices of tomato have fallen 35% on year to around INR 20 per kg on Thursday, according to consumer affairs ministry data.  End

 

Reported by Pallavi Singhal

Edited by Saji George Titus

 

 

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