Tomatoes are set to provide immediate relief to Indian kitchens soon. Tomato consumers will feel less pressure on their pockets as a steep fall in current prices is expected by early September, once harvest from Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Haryana comes in.
Last month, tomato prices burned holes in the budget of Indian households as the prices skyrocketed as the retail price of this common vegetable had moved from Rs 150/kg to Rs 200/kg in mid-July in several parts of the country. As per the data maintained by the consumer affairs ministry, the all-India average price of tomatoes has now declined to Rs 9,195 per quintal from Rs 9,671 per quintal in July.
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The prices are currently stable at Rs 80/kg to Rs 120/kg in most cities, with fresh crops arriving from Maharashtra and Karnataka.
“As supply pressure builds up by the end of this month, we expect prices to come down drastically and touch Rs 30 per kg by mid-September,” said Sanjay Gupta, Managing Director, and Chief Executive Officer of National Commodities Management Services Ltd (NCML).
Currently, a lot of harvests are coming from Maharashtra and Karnataka as these are the only states that produce tomatoes between June and August which are considered an off-season for tomato crop production. The temper of tomatoes is reducing with the major consignment of tomatoes reaching the urban areas from Nashik and Kolar.
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Why the sudden rise and fall of tomato prices?
The Rabi crops were affected by sudden heat which resulted in pest attack and then were affected by untimely rains in early June, extensive dry periods followed later. But now, July rains made up for the lost moisture.
Further harvest of tomatoes is expected to arrive from Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Andhra Pradesh by the end of August month. This will lead to a drastic fall in prices of tomatoes by October due to overgrowth of the crop while prices soared to unprecedented levels.
To keep the tomato trouble in control, the government has taken several steps to reduce the soaring prices. National Cooperative and Consumers Federation (NCCF) and farmers’ cooperative Nafed have been selling tomatoes at the retail price of Rs 70/kg to Rs 90/kg in states feeling the heat of tomatoes. As supplies increased, both NCCF and Nafed dropped the price further to Rs 50/kg.
In July, India witnessed a significant surge in its headline retail inflation, surpassing the upper limit of the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) tolerance range of 2-6 percent. This escalation resulted in a 15-month high inflation rate of 7.44 percent.
The primary driver behind this inflationary spike was the substantial increase in vegetable prices, notably tomatoes, which hold a weightage of 0.6 percent in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation calculation. Remarkably, the inflation rate for tomatoes reached an alarming 200 percent in July, amplifying the overall impact on retail inflation.
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