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According to analysts, consumers will feel the pain of high grocery inflation at least until September.
The Centre on Friday begun selling tomatoes to the public at ₹90 a kilo amid spiralling prices, transporting them from farm hubs to cities, beginning with the national capital.
Yet, the base ingredient of most Indian dishes remained expensive at ₹220-50 a kg in key cities, outpacing the rise in the rates of other essential commodities that have also shot up due to supply-chain disruptions and crop damage amid torrential rains.
In Delhi and the larger national capital region, food trucks started discounted sales on Friday at Karol Bagh, Patel Nagar, Pusa Road, Nehru Place CGO, Sector78 Noida, Pari Chowk, Greater Noida and Rajnigandha Chowk, consumer affairs secretary Rohit Kumar Singh said, adding more tomatoes are being procured. Singh said that subsidised tomato sales were set to begin in Lucknow and Kanpur on Saturday.
Yet, shortages continue to persist. Nearly 17 tonnes of the vegetable arrived on Thursday night from Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra by road with all requisite cargo clearances in advance and real-time inter-state coordination, Shubham Patil, an official of the National Cooperative Consumers’ Federation of India (NCCF) said.
The roots of the tomato crisis go back to last year’s extreme weather in states such as Maharashtra and Karnataka, followed by damage to crops this year too.
Hailstorms in March, April and May destroyed large swathes of tomato crop in Maharashtra, a major supplier during the monsoon months, said Sunil Chavan, Maharashtra’s agriculture commissioner.
Climate-change-induced extreme weather has contributed to the pressing shortage, experts said.
SOURCE:HINDUSTANTIMES
