Potato issue in north Bengal is taking shape of crisis

SILIGURI: Potato is gradually getting into a chaotic corner in northern West Bengal that contributes a great share to national potato yield. On one side, while Government is blocking outflow of potato to other states from there, traders on the other side have stopped working to protest against that. Sandwitched between the two, price of potato in open market has started skyrocketing to go beyond reach of comon mass.

"We cannot send potato to any other state at this moment," this standpoint taken by the state Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, might have been aimed to arrest the rising price of the essential vegetable. But in effect, it has initiated many aftermath those have practically added extra octane to the shooting price of potato that has already taken it above Rs 30 a kg.

The most important effect of CM's decesion is cease work by the potato traders since 11th August. "Our meeting with state Agriculture Minister also could not yield any positive hope. Thus we are compelled to continue our cease work and other movements like road blockade," said Mr. Kartik Das, Secretary, Progressive Potato Traders' Association.

According to him, local demand can consume only 30% of the local produce leaving 70% excess. But north Bengal's storage facility is grossly inadequate. "Thus, we must send it out," said Mr. Das.

Interestingly, according to Mr. Patit Paban De, Vice President(north), Federation of Cold Storage Association of India, there are over 570 cold storages in West Bengal including 422 dedicated to potato against around 100 M Ton of production, near 25% of the national yield. But as a stark contrast to this, against production of around 25 lakh M Ton, north Bengal has storage facility for only 1 lakh M Ton.

Naturally, "Strict embargo on outflow of potato from north Bengal will only complicate the scenario by wasting the produce and increasing price instead of controlling it," said market observers.

However, state Agriculture department officials refrained from talking on this as "The issue is being handled by the CM and her close lieutenants now," commented many of them.

Meanwhile the Government scheme of distribution of potato at controlled price has also crash landed at north Bengal. Huge stock got rotten due to lack of interdepartmental coordination, improper planning or non realistic procurement vs distribution planning. Uneasy with the situation, state Government has decided to compensate that loss too. But, "No one knows when," said Mr. B Paul, a trader.