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 price of tomato is expected to come down with an increase in arrival of the new crop from Nasik, Naryangoan and Aurangabad belt in Maharashtra and also from Madhya Pradesh, the government said on Friday.
The Department of Consumer Affairs monitors the daily prices of 22 essential food commodities including tomato. In order to check the current increase in prices of tomato and make it available to the consumers at affordable prices, the government has started the procurement of tomatoes under the Price Stabilisation Fund and is making it available at a highly subsidised rate to consumers.
The National Cooperative Consumers Federation (NCCF) and National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation (NAFED) are continuously procuring tomato from mandis in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra and making it available at affordable prices in major consuming centres in Delhi-NCR, Bihar, Rajasthan, etc. after subsidising the price to the consumers.
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The tomatoes have been disposed of initially at a retail price of Rs.90/kg which was reduced to Rs.80/kg from 16 July and further reduced to Rs.70/kg from 20 July. The current increase in tomato prices may incentivise farmers to grow more tomato crops which is expected to stabilise the prices in coming months.
The Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (DAFW) implements the Market Intervention Scheme (MIS) to protect the growers of perishable agri-horticultural commodities from making distress sale in the event of a bumper crop during the peak arrival period when the prices tend to fall below economic levels and cost of production.
Under the scheme, the loss on account of the fall in price is borne between the central government and the state government on a 50:50 basis. Since the inception of MIS till date, the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare has not received any proposal from state governments for market intervention to address distress sale of tomato.
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