Odisha notifies potato task force

Waking up to recurring potato crises, the Odisha government today notified a task force to work out a permanent solution.

The task force will prepare a long-term action plan for production, preservation and distribution of potato and submit its report to the government in 30 days.

A notification to this effect was issued by the food supplies and consumer welfare department after the approval of chief minister Naveen Patnaik.

"The task force, through its action plan, will make efforts to make the state self-sufficient in production, procurement, and distribution of potato within three years", food supplies and consumer welfare, Sanjay Dasburma told reporters here.

The task force will be headed by Rajesh Verma, principal secretary (agriculture).

The undeclared curbs by the West Bengal government had triggered potato crunch in Odisha with prices escalating to Rs 50 per kg. Prices of the tuber which had later fell to Rs 30 per kg with the arrival of potato laden trucks from the neighbouring state has been fluctuating of late.

Odisha imports close to one million tonne of potato every year mainly from West Bengal to meet its annual requirement of 1.1 million tonne.

Earlier, the state government had decided to create a buffer stock of 40,000 tonne potato every year at the time of harvesting season. While 20,000 tonne will be stored in six cold storages under the cooperation department, five other private cold storages have been identified for keeping the rest 20,000 tonne.

State cooperative marketing federation (Markfed) and National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation (Nafed) will take up procurement of potatoes during the harvesting season.

The buffer stock will be released every year between August and December.