Vegetable prices likely to cool down, rising crude a bit of concern: Finance Ministry official

NEW DELHI: The government expects vegetable prices to start cooling off from next month with the advent of new crops in the market, but rising crude oil prices is a concern even though it is still within the tolerable zone of USD 90 a barrel, a finance ministry official said.

The official further said that a reduction in excise duty is not on the cards the government is driving infrastructure investment, and private sector capital investment is yet to gather steam.

He further said that the Centre’s capital expenditure which was 28 per cent of Budget estimates at the end of the June quarter, will reach 50 per cent by September end.

In the 2023-24 budget, the government had hiked capital investment outlay by 33 per cent to Rs 10 lakh crore in the current fiscal.

The official further said that a 6 per cent rainfall deficit is unlikely to impact kharif sowing as the agriculture sector is resilient.

The government has been taking steps to control inflation, including releasing wheat and rice stocks from reserves, putting restrictions on exports of rice, and sugar, and allowing the import of pulses and oilseeds.

“Flexible trade policy has been adopted to keep prices down. We must remember that global food prices are very high due to the Ukraine war and the supply of food grains has been affected and that is a global factor from which India cannot remain isolated. We have taken measures to isolate our population from that inflation and relative to others we are in a much better position,” the official said.

He said interventions have been made to cool tomato prices and those steps will bear fruit in the coming months.

Tomato is a seasonal crop and we will get another crop shortly and the price pressure will ease.

“This temporarily high inflation is partly driven by vegetables. I expect the vegetable prices will contract quickly, likely by next month,” the official added.

The retail inflation touched a 15-month high of 7.44 per cent in July, a spike from 4.87 per cent in June. However, wholesale price-based inflation continued in the negative zone for the fourth straight month at (-)1.36 per cent in July.

In July, the annual retail inflation in the vegetables basket was at 37.44 per cent, spices at 21.63 per cent, pulses and products at 13.27 per cent, and cereals and products at 13 per cent.