Potato price declines by Rs 100 per quintal in Bengal wholesale markets

KOLKATA: Potato price has declined by Rs 100 per quintal in the wholesale market in Bengal. Potatoes from Hooghly which was hovering around Rs 1,300 per quintal a week ago has climbed down to Rs 1,200 per quintal.

Gopal Mondol, a leading potato trader in the state said: ""Potatoes in most of the wholesale markets in Bengal has seen a downward revision in prices."" Prices declined after the chief minister Mamta Banerjee intervened to put a check on prices.

With the prices of potato soaring, the state government has also started selling the tuber from ration shops in the city and satellite town of Salt Lake. ""We have started selling potatoes from ration shops at Rs 12 per kg in Kolkata and Salt Lake as prices have steeply risen in these areas,"" state food and supplies minister Jyoti Priya Mallick told newsmen.

Mallick said the shops were selling two kg of potatoes to every buyer. The minister said the government would also sell vegetables like lady's finger, pointed gourd and green chilli from the ration shops. He alleged that prices of these vegetables have escalated following machinations of hoarders and middlemen.

Though the state is the second largest producer of potato in the country, potatoes were being sold at Rs 16 a kg in some of the major markets in Kolkata.