Centre starts selling tomatoes at subsidised rate of Rs 65/kg in Delhi
New Delhi (PTI): The Centre on Monday started selling tomatoes at a subsidised rate of Rs 65 per kg in the national capital to provide relief to the common man and check abnormal profits by intermediaries.
Tomatoes are being sold at an average rate of Rs 90 per kg in the national capital.
Consumer Affairs Secretary Nidhi Khare flagged off National Cooperative Consumers' Federation of India Ltd (NCCF) vans selling tomatoes at Rs 65 per kg.
"We are trying to moderate the prices of tomatoes. With this market intervention, in the next 3-4 days prices of tomatoes will come down," Khare told reporters here.
NCCF has initiated a market intervention by directly procuring tomatoes from mandis and selling them at a subsidised rate of Rs 65 per kg. Mobile vans would sell tomatoes at 50 colonies in the national capital.
The intervention is to protect consumers from recent increase in tomato prices and prevent windfall gains for intermediaries, according to a statement.
"The retail price of tomatoes has seen unwarranted increase in recent weeks despite continuous arrival in mandis in good quantities. Rains and high humidity due to prolonged monsoon in major producing states such as Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra are reported to have led to quality concerns in recent weeks," the Department of Consumer Affairs said.
The possible role of market intermediaries in the current price rise in this high-demand festive season may not be ruled out, it added.
The NCCF is also continuously supplying onions from the government buffer at Rs 35 per kg to retail consumers in major cities across the country.
Khare also said that the department is importing pulses from Myanmar and chickpeas from Australia.
In the national capital, the average price of potato is Rs 40 per kg and onion Rs 58 per kg.
The all-India average price of potato is Rs 36.89 per kg, onion Rs 54.36 per kg and tomato Rs 64.72 per kg on Monday, according to the government data.
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'Low-quality' catheters supplied to West Bengal govt hospitals at high price, probe ordered
Kolkata (PTI): The West Bengal health department has launched a probe into the supplies of allegedly low-quality and locally made catheters at a high price to several government hospitals, posing a risk to the lives of patients undergoing treatment in these facilities, officials said.
Such central venous catheters (CVCs) were allegedly supplied to at least five medical colleges and hospitals in the state, defying allocation of international standard-compliant CVCs, they said.
The distribution company, which has been accused of supplying these catheters to government hospitals, admitted to the fault but placed the blame on its employees.
"We started checking stocks some time back and found these locally made CVCs in my hospital store. These catheters are of low quality as compared to those allocated by the state. We have informed the state health department," a senior official of the Calcutta Medical College and Hospital told PTI.
Low-quality catheters were also found in the stores of other hospitals, which indicates "possible involvement of insiders in the scam", a health department official said.
The low-quality CVCs were supplied by a distributor in the Hatibagan area in the northern part of Kolkata for the last three to four months, he said.
"Such kinds of local CVCs are priced around Rs 1,500 but the distributor took Rs 4,177 for each device," the official said.
A CVC is a thin and flexible tube that is inserted into a vein to allow for the administration of fluids, blood, and other treatment. It's also clinically called a central line catheter.
"An initial probe revealed that the distribution company Prakash Surgical had supplied the low-quality and locally manufactured catheters to several government hospitals instead of the CVCs of the government-designated international company.
"All the units will be tested and a proper investigation is on to find out who benefited from these supplies," the health department official said.
The distribution company blamed its employees for the supply of inferior quality catheters.
"I was sick for a few months. Some employees of the organisation made this mistake. We are taking back all those units that have gone to the hospitals. It's all about misunderstanding," an official of the distribution company told PTI.
According to another state health department official, a complaint was lodged with the police in this connection.
Asked about how many patients were affected by the usage of such low-quality CVCs, the official said, "The probe would also try to find that out".
According to sources in the health department, some of the staff of the hospitals' equipment receiving departments and some local officials of international organisations might be involved in the alleged irregularities.
