Price rise in India triggers potato smuggling from West-Bengal

Since potato prices in West Bengal are fixed by state government, smuggling of potatoes to surrounding Indian states that do not have fixed potato prices has become a major issue.

Though West Bengal`s chief minister Mamata Banerjee recently asked the authorities concerned to see that home-grown potatoes were not sold to other states, in a desperate bid to scale down the prices, this has not stopped rampant cross-border smuggling of potatoes to other states.

Potato sacks are now being loaded in private buses in the city and smuggled to neighbouring states of Jharkhand and Odisha. The activity goes on in broad daylight and increases at night. Private buses depart from Strand Road with sacks of potatoes on top.

The chief minister had also ordered a crackdown on potato retailers who sell their products above the government rate of Rs 13 a kilogram. However, this has created a dilemma for traders. As the potato prices are very high across the country, traders are facing losses.

According to traders, they will face more losses if they start selling potatoes below the rate of Rs 13 per kilogram. In such a situation where the police are pulling them up for selling potatoes above the rate fixed by the government, potato traders are not willing to bring their products from the cold storage to the markets.

The price of potato could also not be controlled in the districts. Whereas a 50 kilogram sack of potato was being sold for Rs 580 on Saturday, on Sunday it was getting sold at Rs 600 to Rs 675.

Chandramukhi and Jyoti varieties of potatoes for several markets in the city and adjacent areas are mostly supplied from Hooghly district.

Lalu Mukherjee of the 'Progotisil Aloo Babosayi Samity' said that they were planning to request the state government to relax the rules on exporting potatoes.

"There are 417 cold storages where almost six to seven lakh tonnes of potatoes are being stored. These potatoes will rot if not utilized by the month of December. Till this year, traders have been selling potatoes to other states. Why did the government come up with the ban this time?"he asked.

Source: The Times of India