Even as tomato prices hit a new high of ₹160 a kg in the retail markets all over the Rayalaseema region, the consumers decried that the vegetable vendors were taking undue advantage of the crisis and selling third-grade variety tomatoes to them at exorbitant prices.
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On Monday, the wholesale price of the tomatoes for the first-grade variety stood at ₹104 per kg and that of the second-grade at ₹91.
The exports to the northern States and neighbouring Tamil Nadu and Karnataka peaked this week, and the consumers at many vegetable markets were irked, saying that even though they were ready to pay the exorbitant price, the first-grade quality was not available.
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A retired professor in Madanapalle opined that vigilance officials should be strict in such situations and hike the surveillance on the wholesale and retail markets. Though the State government had launched subsidised sales of the tomato in Rythu bazaars, they are not accessible to all the consumers, he said.
Compared to the Madanapalle agriculture market yard, where 1,127 tonnes of tomatoes arrived on Monday, the markets in Chintamani and Kolar in Karnataka suffered a slump in the supply. Many traders Chintamani and Kolar rushed to Madanapalle, eventually contributing to a price rise.
Meanwhile, horticulture officials in Chittoor and Annamayya districts said that going by the trends of the crop pattern in the ongoing Khariff, the tomato prices would most likely begin to drop from August second week onward with the onset of the harvest of the first crops.