HC directs Koyambedu panel to allow concession to tomato traders

The facility will be reviewed after Pongal, says judge

Tomato prices rose to ₹130 a kg after the recent heavy rain in Chennai.

The Madras High Court on Wednesday directed the Koyambedu Wholesale Market Managing Committee to continue the interim arrangement of having allotted one acre out of a three-acre vacant land inside the market complex for exclusive use of licensed tomato traders till Pongal. The court wanted to check whether the arrangement helps reduce tomato prices.

Justice R. Suresh Kumar made it clear that the Thanthai Periyar Tomato Traders’ Association cannot claim any equity on the basis of the interim arrangement, which was purely made on the basis of a court order in public interest.

The judge told M. Velmurugan, counsel for the marketing committee, that the allotment of the land would be reviewed by the court after Pongal.

It was on November 29 that the judge had directed the committee to allot land for the exclusive use of tomato traders on an experimental basis since the association before the court claimed that it would help them in bringing tomatoes from various parts of the country and thereby help in reducing the soaring price of the essential commodity in cooking.

However, when the case was listed again on Wednesday, Mr. Velmurugan told the court that tomato prices were dependant upon the price at which they were procured and not on the quantity that arrived in Koyambedu. He said the prices had not dipped though the quantity brought to Koyambedu had increased from 430 tonnes on November 30 to 608 tonnes on December 13.

He said the wholesale price of tomatoes was between ₹40 to ₹65 a kg, depending upon the grade, on November 30 and it had increased to ₹50 to ₹70 a kg despite increase in quantity procured from other States. The retail price of the highest quality first grade tomatoes was much above ₹100 a kg, he added.

On his part, the counsel for traders association told the court that in the usual course, tomatoes were procured only from States such as Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. However, now traders had begun to procure from Maharashtra and Chattisgarh too. Yet, the price across the country was very high, he said.

The Market Committee pointed out that the land ordered to be allotted by the court as an interim arrangement was used only by the members of the petitioner association, who were illegally using the unloading site for sale too, whereas the other tomato traders in the wholesale market continued to use the truck bays close to their shops.