In a day the chief minister assigned two of his Cabinet ministers to sort out potato crisis in retail markets, per kg price of the essential vegetable of Bengali dishes made a quantum jump to Rs 50 in Burdwan, the second largest grower of potato after Hooghly, today.
During yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, chief minister Mamata Banerjee had assigned Becharam Manna, the agricultural marketing minister and Pradip Majumdar, the panchayat minister to take suitable measures to ensure availability of potato at a reasonable price in retail markets. Manna also held meeting with the striking potato growers and traders at Haripal in Hooghly today for the purpose.
The district administration officials accompanied by the police meanwhile raided 18 cold storages in Jamalpur block today and asked the operators to table the lists against booking of potato per kg at the earliest. K Radhika Aiyar, DM, East Burdwan said: “We’ve given strong instructions to the cold storages to mobilise the release of potato packets.”
But, the soaring potato prices further burned the fingers of the common consumers by and large across East and West Burdwan, Bankura today. Even yesterday, Burdwan vendors sold potatoes varying between Rs 30 to Rs 32 per kg, which was scaled up to between Rs 45 & Rs 50 today.
Due to the sustained strike by the Pogotoshil Alu Byabsayee Samiti across the potato growing districts like Hooghly, East Burdwan, Birbhum, Nadia and Murshidabad, potato packets stacked inside the cold storages couldn’t be brought out. Some farmers volunteered bringing packets on the plea of family consumption, which however were channeled to the retailers. “Each packet sold at Rs 1,440 on Monday were made available to vendors at Rs 2,000,” said Rameswar Saw, a large distributor in Burdwan town.
Bibhas Dey, state president of the Samiti, after meeting with minister Manna said today: “It’s an effective meeting today and the minister has assured us to place our issue before the chief minister tomorrow.” He added: “We expect the potato price at the retail markets will stabilize in a day or two.”