Centre funds 28 ideas to address, stabilise tomato supply chain
The Department of Consumer Affairs has provided funding for prototype development and mentorship to 28 ideas under a hackathon titled Tomato Grand Challenge (TGC).
The Centre has directed the National Cooperative Consumers’ Federation (NCCF) and the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED) to sell tomatoes at a retail price of Rs.70/- per kg rate from tomorrow in view of the declining trend in prices.
The tomatoes procured by NCCF and NAFED had been retailed, initially, at Rs.90/- per kg and then reduced to Rs.80/- per kg from 16 July. The reduction to Rs.70/- kg will further benefit the consumers, the Department of Consumer Affairs said.
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It may be recalled that on the direction of the Department, NCCF and NAFED had commenced the procurement of tomato from mandis in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra for simultaneous disposal in major consumption centres where retails prices have recorded the maximum increase in the last one month.
The retail sale of tomatoes in Delhi-NCR had started from 14 July. Till 18 July, a total of 391 MT of tomato had been procured by the two agencies which are being continuously disposed of to the retail consumers in major consumption centres of Delhi-NCR, Rajasthan, UP and Bihar.
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