The Centre on Wednesday directed the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation (NAFED) and National Cooperative Consumers Federation (NCCF) to procure tomatoes from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra for distribution in major consumption centres.

The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, in a release, said that the procurement will be done for simultaneous distribution in major consumption centres where retail prices have recorded maximum increase in the last one month.

“The stocks of tomato will be distributed through retail outlets at discounted prices to the consumers in Delhi-NCR region by Friday, this week,” the release said.

“The targeted centres for release have been identified on the basis of absolute increase in retail prices over the past one month in centres where prevailing prices are above the All-India average. Key consumption centres in states having higher concentration of the identified centres are further selected for the intervention,” the Ministry said.

As per the data from the consumer affairs ministry, the all-India average retail price of tomatoes was Rs 104.38 per kg.