The soaring cost of tomatoes has positioned it as a luxury item in the country, with prices reaching Rs 180 per kilogram in many regions.
In Tamil Nadu’s Madurai, a travel agency has come up with a unique promotional scheme. As tomatoes consistently make headlines for their exorbitant cost, the agency offers a kilogram of the prized fruit for free to each customer for booking flight tickets.
People who are booking international plans are even more fortunate, receiving one and a half kilograms of tomatoes.
The agency owner explained, “Many customers used this offer and booked tickets and the offer was valid for only two days (11-12th July). We attracted many customers with this offer. They also got tomatoes free of cost and we are happy to give them away as it helps a lot in our business."
Meanwhile, the AIADMK political party in Tamil Nadu has leveraged the tomato’s luxury status for celebration and protest. Following the Election Commission’s approval of E Palanisamy as the party’s General Secretary, party cadres celebrated by distributing free tomatoes to women.
A party member elaborated, “We wanted to celebrate EC’s nod on accepting our leader as the General Secretary of the AIADMK and hence we thought of distributing tomatoes as it’s very costly now and poor people are finding it difficult to buy this luxury veggie that was once a humble vegetable. We bought 100 kilograms of tomatoes at Rs 130/kilogram and we distributed it for free to the women."
In Chennai, AIADMK cadres protested the price hike of vegetables. In a mix of critique and compassion, they sang songs on the government’s handling of the situation and distributed 1001 aid bags containing tomatoes, dal, and eggs to the underprivileged.
The sight of long queues for this aid underscores the gravity of the situation and the unusual role the once-humble tomato now plays in India’s socio-economic landscape.