India starts importing tomatoes from Nepal amid price spike

India has started importing tomatoes from Nepal, India's finance minister said on Thursday amid a record-high spike in prices in the country.

The first lot of imports are likely to reach by Friday in Varanasi, Lucknow and Kanpur cities in northern India, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told the parliament.

Tomato prices have surged more than 1,400 per cent at the wholesale market to a record 140 rupees ($1.69) per kg in the past three months, with farmers citing reasons including poor rainfall, higher temperatures and a virus outbreak that have hit the crop.