OT enquires after efforts to contain rising prices of vegetables

GANGTOK, 29 Aug: Sikkim’s lone representative in the Rajya Sabha, OT Lepcha, in a query posed to the Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution in the House today, enquired after the rising prices of the vegetables.
Mr Lepcha asked whether any steps have been taken by the Central Government to reduce the prices of vegetables which have been seen a huge increase over the last two years. He further sought details of such measures.

His queries were answered by the Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Prof KV Thomas. He mentioned that the retail prices of vegetables such as potato and tomato have shown steady to declining trend whereas the prices of onion had registered a marginal increase over the last two years in all four metros.
It was further explained that seasonal factors as well as weather impacts affected the prices of vegetables, however, the Government had taken various steps to reduce the prices of vegetables such as onion by “calibrating the minimum export prices of onion to control the export of onion and thereby contain their price rise”.
It was further informed that the central government provides assistance under the National Horticulture Mission and Technology Mission on Integrated Development of Horticulture in North Eastern States, Jammu & Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh  schemes for increasing production and setting up terminal markets, wholesale markets and rural primary markets, apni mandies to ensure adequate supply of fruits and vegetable to the consumers at reasonable prices and also to provide remunerative returns to the farmers.