Tomato Prices Rise Again Due To Tight Supply, Mother Dairy Stores Selling At Rs 259 Per Kg

The retail price of tomatoes touched Rs 203 per kg on Wednesday due to supply disruptions and shortages.

Tomato prices have once spiked in the national capital and Mother Dairy stores are selling them for Rs 259 per kg via its Safal retail stores, reported news agency PTI. The prices have been increasing for over a month now due to supply disruptions and shortages caused due to heavy rainfall in the key producing regions in the country.

According to the data maintained by the Consumer Affairs Ministry, the retail price of tomatoes touched Rs 203 per kg on Wednesday. However, Mother Dairy's Safal retail outlets were selling the kitchen staple at an inflated price of Rs 259 per kg, reported PTI.

A Mother Dairy spokesperson was quoted as saying by PTI, "Tomato supply has been affected across the country for last two months owing to weather abnormalities." The spokesperson also said in the last two days, tomato arrivals in Azadpur, which is the main feeder for Delhi, have also gone down drastically.

The spokesperson said the short supply has resulted in wholesale prices shooting up sharply. This has also impacted retail prices, said the spokesperson.

Wholesale prices of tomato at Delhi's Azadpur mandi, Asia's largest wholesale fruits and vegetables market, were anywhere between Rs 170-220 per kg on Wednesday depending on the quality. 

Azadpur Tomato Association President Ashok Kaushik said, as quoted by PTI, "In the last three days, the arrival of tomatoes has reduced as the crop has been damaged in the growing regions because of heavy rainfall." 

Notably, on Wednesday, Azadpur mandi saw the arrival of only 15 per cent tomatoes as only six small trucks could get the supplies from Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

Kaushik said short supply has led to firming up of prices. However, he said the supply situation is expected to improve in the next ten days. Earlier, after the Central government started selling subsidised tomatoes to people at Rs 80 a kg in Delhi-NCR and some other key cities through the National Cooperative Consumers' Federation of India (NCCF) and the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED).