After a gathering with potato merchants and all stakeholders, the Mamata Banerjee-led authorities allowed promoting of as much as 2 lakh tonnes of the tuber from Bengal to different States for seven days from Wednesday.
“On the consideration that there shall be no scarcity of potato for the State and costs will stabilise — it could possibly come down however not go up — until the contemporary manufacturing arrives, for the subsequent seven days the federal government will enable supplying potatoes upto 2 lakh tonnes to different States,” West Bengal Panchayat Minister Pradip Majumdar informed businessline.
Lengthy-term resolution
Majumdar mentioned officers can be maintaining observe of the value motion for potatoes. The federal government had enforced a ban final month on the inter-State commerce of the spud after costs shot up within the State considerably. Notably, West Bengal is the nation’s second largest potato-growing State.
Majumdar mentioned the federal government would take a name on lifting the inter-State commerce ban for an extended interval if costs don’t rise within the state through the subsequent seven days.
“If the costs don’t rise after permitting the seven-day inter-State commerce, then the Chief Minister would take a name on extending the interval for promoting potatoes to different States. If the costs stabilise within the home market, clearly the date shall be prolonged,” he mentioned.
The federal government met potato merchants and all stakeholders on Tuesday after the West Bengal Chilly Storage Affiliation and Paschim Banga Pragatishil Alu Byabsayee Samiti urged it to carry a gathering on the difficulty of inter-state commerce.
Market loss fears
As the federal government was sticking to its resolution to not enable inter-State commerce, potato growers and merchants had been staging agitation saying they might be dealing with enormous losses.
Potato merchants in Bengal had been fearing that they might lose their markets to Uttar Pradesh because the Mamata Banerjee-led authorities was sticking to its resolution to not enable inter-State commerce of the spud.
The merchants mentioned they had been watching enormous monetary losses because of the ban on the export of potatoes to different States. An additional extension of the ban was prone to end in Bengal shedding out in its main potato markets akin to Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Assam to Uttar Pradesh. Normally, these 4 States rely largely on Bengal’s potatoes.
Bengal sells round 20-25 lakh tonnes of extra potatoes to the opposite States yearly.
“All of the stakeholders on the assembly had been pleased as we speak. In fact, the problem stays for them to make sure that the availability stays easy within the home market,” the minister added.
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