Chief minister Mamata Banerjee has set a deadline of 10 days to bring down prices of vegetables. At a meeting in state secretariat Nabanna, she directed the state administration and the task force constituted by her to check prices of essential commodities in retail markets and bring them down.

On Tuesday afternoon, Miss Banerjee chaired a meeting and directed the task force to meet every week to review the situation and give her a report after seven days. Sources said, at the meeting the CM lambasted a section of bigger potato traders for the skyrocketing prices of this staple vegetable in the retail market. She said that the big traders were responsible for the price of potatoes reaching Rs 35 (jyoti variety) a kg in the retail markets, when the farmers were selling them at Rs 15 a kg.

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According to her, some big traders were deliberately hoarding their stock of potatoes in cold storages to artificially jack up the prices. She directed the state administration and the task force members to immediately take action against these hoarders. She also spoke about a conspiracy theory on the recent rise in the price of mutton in retail markets. According to her, recently rumours were spread about the outbreak of Bird Flu in the state, which prompted a number of meat eaters to shift to mutton from chicken.

She also directed the task force members to keep a strict vigil on the export of vegetables, especially potatoes and onion to other states and keep a close vigil on West Bengal’s borders. According to CM Banerjee, such products can only be exported to other states after meeting the requirements of West Bengal. On hoarding, the chief minister asked the agriculture department to mobilise the STF, CID, IB and police to rein in hoarding. Tallying the prices of potatoes and onions at this time, previous year, the CM said that onion prices are hovering at Rs 50 per kg.

She asked the officers of the state agriculture marketing department to explore the option of procuring onions from the farmers in the state? “Try to explore the option of procuring onion from the onion growers in the state instead of banking heavily on procuring it from Nashik, Maharashtra. As a result it would help in procuring onion at less prices and the farmers of the state would be benefitted,” Miss Banerjee said at the meeting.