West Bengal govt to carry assembly with potato merchants on August 20

The West Bengal authorities is scheduled to carry a gathering with potato merchants and all stakeholders on Tuesday to make sure that normalcy prevails within the potato market within the State.

Final month, the federal government enforced a ban on the inter-State commerce of the spud after costs shot up within the State considerably.

As the federal government has thus far been sticking to its resolution to not enable inter-State commerce, potato growers and merchants launched an agitation, saying they might be going through enormous losses. The West Bengal Chilly Storage Affiliation and Paschim Banga Pragatishil Alu Byabsayee Samiti have urged the federal government to carry a gathering on this subject.

Reining in costs

“We’ll meet the merchants and stakeholders on Tuesday (August 20). All of the stakeholders have been invited,” State Panchayat Minister Pradip Majumdar informed businessline.

Majumdar stated the federal government imposed the ban final month because it needed to regulate the rising costs of potatoes. “We needed to maintain the value beneath ₹30 per kg in retail. Merchants and the chilly storage affiliation have assured us. So, we’re hopeful that we are going to be resolving this subject by tomorrow,” he stated.

“Farmers have realised good costs final yr. This yr, we wish to guarantee that our shoppers additionally don’t undergo from any undue value rise. The commerce also needs to co-operate and there must be normalcy out there. These are our goals, which now we have mentioned with our merchants already. Now, we wish to have a gathering all collectively after which decide,” the minister stated.

Worry market loss

Potato merchants in Bengal are fearing that they might lose their markets to Uttar Pradesh because the Mamata Banerjee-led authorities is sticking to its resolution to not enable inter-State commerce of the spud.

In keeping with the merchants, they’re looking at enormous monetary losses because of the ban on the export of potatoes to different States. An extra extension of the ban is more likely to end in Bengal shedding out in its main potato markets reminiscent of Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Assam to Uttar Pradesh. Often, these 4 States rely largely on Bengal’s potatoes.

Bengal sells round 20-25 lakh tonnes of extra potatoes to the opposite States yearly.