Still recovering from the recent onion price crisis, the government is planning to expand the basket of vegetables it monitors for food inflation data.
At present, only onion and potato are monitored as all sections of the population consume them round the year.
The consumer affairs ministry has asked the state governments to list the vegetables, other than onion and potato, in order to create a more practical system of tracking the prices of perishables.
“There is a need to broaden the focus of the monitoring system of vegetables to avoid any future crisis,” said a senior official in the consumer affairs ministry.
The move, said officials, would help them have regular data on the production and prices of other vegetables like tomato, brinjal, pea and cauliflower, across the country. However, experts said this is easier said that done as the government can intervene only in cereals like wheat and rice besides sugarcane and has no role in the production and marketing of vegetables.
The government is concerned because rising prices of onion and other vegetables like tomato had pushed up the food inflation to a high of 18.32 per cent for the week ended December 25, 2010. If not controlled, this can spillover to other sectors of the economy and can affect the overall economic growth targets of the government.
Though retail onion prices have come down from the unusually high levels at Rs 70-85 per kg on December 21, 2010, based on fresh arrivals, the commodity is still selling at Rs 40 per kg in retail. Tomato, whose prices have almost doubled in the past two weeks, is being sold Rs 40 per kg.