To provide relief to people of the national Capital from high tomato prices, the Ministry of Food and Consumer Affairs on Wednesday directed Kendriya Bhandar, Mother Dairy and National Cooperative outlets to reduce the prices by 3 per kg from Thursday.
The Ministry has also directed cooperative Nafed to provide milled-tur dal at Rs 82 per kg and Tur dal at Rs 80-85 per kg at 'no-profit no-loss' basis through Safal, Kendriya Bhandar and NCCF outlets in the national Capital region. Mother Dairy, Kendriya Bhandar and cooperative NCCF were also asked to sell tur dal at Rs 80-85 per kg through their retail outlets.
An official of the Ministry of Food and Consumer Affairs said that the decisions were taken after the review of the prices of key commodities at a high-level meeting, chaired by Consumer Affairs Secretary Avinash K Srivastava.
In case of pulses, the official said Nafed has been asked to provide milled-tur dal at Rs 82 per kg to the Delhi government. These agencies will sell the buffer stock of pulses created by the Government. Tur dal rates in the national Capital have crossed Rs 100 per kg, though the Government data shows Rs 97/kg on Wednesday. Besides, the Ministry has also prepared a list of wholesale suppliers of pulses so that they could keep an eye on hoardings. There were intelligence reports that there is no shortage of pulses in the country and several wholesale suppliers have stopped the supply to disrupt the retail supply. This has led to increase of pulses rate across the country.
In case of tomato, Mother Dairy has been directed to reduce the rates of all three varieties by Rs 2-3 per kg from October 24, the official said.
The official further said the Centre has decided to boost the supply of hybrid variety of tomato in Delhi in the next few days. Hybrids have a longer shelf life and are of better quality. It was informed in the meeting that transportation of tomatoes from Andhra Pradesh was not feasible.
Tomato prices have shot up to Rs 60-80 per kg in the national capital and some other parts of the country due to rains in key growing state of Maharashtra. In the case of onion, prices have started lowering at some places. Even Lasalgaon onion suppliers have urged the Centre to lift curb on export as the supply has been improved in the past few days.