The wholesale price of egg has remained high for the past six days, but it has not impacted supplies to nutritious noon meal centres. Enough stocks to last through the week have been despatched to the centres, sources at the private firm involved in the supply of eggs said.
There was no laxity in the procurement and supply of eggs to the noon meal centres at any point of time despite the egg price soaring to an all-time high of ₹5.16 and egg last week, the sources in the Tiruchengode-based firm told The Hindu on Tuesday. Efforts are on to procure eggs for next week’s quota to noon-meal centres, they said.
The wholesale price of egg stood at ₹4.74 on November 15. The following day, the National Egg Co-ordination Committee (NECC) hiked it to ₹5.16, the highest ever so far, causing much anxiety among the general public and the official machinery. The NECC brought it down by 11 paise, for the first time in six days, to ₹ 5.05 on Tuesday.
With the egg price continuing to remain at ₹5.16 for the next five days, doubts were raised in the government circles on the supply of eggs for the noon-meal centres in the State.
The sources said that the firm, which got the contract for the supply of eggs for the current year, should supply eggs weighing between 45 gm and 52 gm to the noon meal centres.
The firm had entered into a contract with the government for the supply of eggs at ₹4.43 and egg. As per the contract, the concern has to supply a whopping 2.5 crore eggs every week to the noon meal centres.
Following the steep hike in the price, the concern is in a fix, as it had to spend additional money from its pocket for the purchase of eggs. This gave rise to the doubt over sustaining the supply to the centres.
All the noon meal centres used to get the eggs at least four days in advance. Some centres received the quota only two days in advance last week and this too strengthened the doubts of the official machinery.
The sources said as per the contract condition, the concern had to supply eggs at the price fixed, irrespective of the wholesale price of the egg fixed by the NECC.
“We are sincerely fulfilling the contract condition and going around as usual collecting the eggs for the next week well in advance”, the sources said.
Official sources in Namakkal and Salem confirmed that they had received eggs for all the noon meal centres. There is no complaint of any short supply from any part, they said.
