Last week, a kilogram of tomatoes on Swiggy Instamart cost Rs 89 in Mumbai. Now, that can set you back by Rs 121. On BigBasket, prices range from Rs 120-164 a kg compared with Rs 84 a week ago.
After having breached the Rs 100 mark, tomatoes continue to pinch consumers, along with other key commodities.
Of all key food items, tomatoes have seen the sharpest increase, with all-India daily average at Rs 83.3 per kg on July 7 compared with Rs 46.1 a week earlier, according to daily data by the Department of Consumer Affairs. On an annual basis, prices have surged 76%.
Other key vegetables, including potatoes and onions, saw a modest uptick but were retailing for less than a year ago.
Prices are up predominantly because of late rains and some amount of speculative pricing, Suvodeep Rakshit, senior economist at Kotak Institutional Equities, said. Supply disruptions are limited to certain parts of the country because of cyclone or flooding, he said.
Potatoes, onions and tomatoes comprise 2.2% of the consumer price index, the highest among vegetables. A reason why their prices are published daily by the government.
Wholesale mandi prices published by the government had also shown a sequential uptick in other commonly consumed fruits and vegetables including spinach and other leafy vegetables, brinjals, cabbage, cauliflower, apples and grapes, among others.
For many of the items, the increase in June is more than the usual seasonal momentum, indicating impact of the weak start to the monsoon, said Gaura Sengupta, India economist at IDFC First Bank, who forecasts CPI inflation for June at 4.4%.
From a food crop output perspective, rainfall in July is much more important as around 80% of the sowing is completed by then compared to 20% in June, Sengupta said. The quantum of rainfall and spatial distribution are also important, she said. In cases where rainfall is deficient in highly irrigated states, the impact on food grain output is lower, she said.
Adverse weather events could exert an upward pressure of 50 basis points on headline inflation, according to the Reserve Bank of India's assessment.
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