Going far beyond the political arena, just concluded panchayat election has deeply impacted potato market in West Bengal, countries second largest producer of the tuber. Outcome of the impact is steep hike in potato price.
Going far beyond the political arena, just concluded panchayat election has deeply impacted potato market in West Bengal, countries second largest producer of the tuber. Outcome of the impact is steep hike in potato price.
Beginning from the metro city market to the deep rural areas, potato has touched too high retail level price of Rs 20 to 25 Rs a kg.
“Reason lies in panchayat election,” said Gobind Kajariya, President of West Bengal Cold Storage Association.
After potato harvesting season in February- March, large chunk of the stock goes to cold storages while the rest gets consumed straight from the field. The stock stored in cold storages starts coming out by May after the straight from field stock gets exhausted- he informed.
“Against 115 Metric Ton (MT) production last year, this year’s output of the state remained around 100 MT. Out of this, around 70 Lakh MT found place in Cold storages leaving rest in field. This year, due to less production, the field stock remained low and got exhausted fast initiating demand of cold storage stock by the end of April,” said Kajaria.
“Whole cold storage operation needs high number of human labour. Most of our workers come from deep rural areas. But, this year, for Panchayat election, almost all of them moved to their own village by 10th May and started coming back only after 20th. Naturally, the cold storages had to remain completely silent for almost ten days,” said Ex President of the organization Patit Paban Dey.
“Eventually, that has developed an acute shortage in market pushing up retail price to as high as Rs 20 a kg,” he added.
Interestingly, in northern part of Bengal, cold storage capacity is much low against production. That keeps higher volume of stock in field. Hence, election time silence of cold storages could not impact stock availability in retail level there.
However, “This is a temporary phase and should not continue any more as normalcy in workforce has started taking place,” said almost all in the sector.
Cold storages in West Bengal generate Rs.3,000 crore annual revenue and play key determinant role in potato price. Despite being inadequate, the storage capacity remained almost stagnant here since 2011 when state government withdrew subsidies given to build new units.
Beginning from the metro city market to the deep rural areas, potato has touched too high retail level price of Rs 20 to 25 Rs a kg.
“Reason lies in panchayat election,” said Gobind Kajariya, President of West Bengal Cold Storage Association.
After potato harvesting season in February- March, large chunk of the stock goes to cold storages while the rest gets consumed straight from the field. The stock stored in cold storages starts coming out by May after the straight from field stock gets exhausted- he informed.
“Against 115 Metric Ton (MT) production last year, this year’s output of the state remained around 100 MT. Out of this, around 70 Lakh MT found place in Cold storages leaving rest in field. This year, due to less production, the field stock remained low and got exhausted fast initiating demand of cold storage stock by the end of April,” said Kajaria.
“Whole cold storage operation needs high number of human labour. Most of our workers come from deep rural areas. But, this year, for Panchayat election, almost all of them moved to their own village by 10th May and started coming back only after 20th. Naturally, the cold storages had to remain completely silent for almost ten days,” said Ex President of the organization Patit Paban Dey.
“Eventually, that has developed an acute shortage in market pushing up retail price to as high as Rs 20 a kg,” he added.
Interestingly, in northern part of Bengal, cold storage capacity is much low against production. That keeps higher volume of stock in field. Hence, election time silence of cold storages could not impact stock availability in retail level there.
However, “This is a temporary phase and should not continue any more as normalcy in workforce has started taking place,” said almost all in the sector.
Cold storages in West Bengal generate Rs.3,000 crore annual revenue and play key determinant role in potato price. Despite being inadequate, the storage capacity remained almost stagnant here since 2011 when state government withdrew subsidies given to build new units.