Tuber crisis revisits

The potato crisis is revisiting Odisha. The stage is all prepared for the event. West Bengal government of course is the main event manager but the Odisha govt. is no lesser partner in the act. After a week’s relaxation, on Saturday night Mamata’s men emerged at the Bengal Odisha border and drove the potato trucks back thus cutting off the tuber flow to Odisha.
However the Odisha govt. has ruled out any imminent tuber adverse in the state. The Odisha food supply and consumer welfare minister Sanjay Dasburma on Monday came up with a statement that the state has sufficient potato reserve for month’s consumption. However market observers are too reluctant to agree with the Minister’s claim. The obvious question is if there was enough stock for a month then why the tuber claims Rs30 a kilo in the market? One may also be curious to know where from the stock came?
The Minister says in the week ended on the 23rd some 1448 potato laden trucks had been into Odisha from West Bengal through Laxman Nath check gate and another 400 plus such trucks has entered Odisha through Jamsola Ghat check gate. Taking an average of sixteen ton capacity a truck those 1848 plus trucks have carried some 29000 tons of potato into Odisha. Import through NAFED may add some to it but It is to be noted that the monthly tuber consumption in Odisha is nearly 1lac ton.
Anyway Dasburma has assured that the neighbor state’s restriction on the potato supply will be short lived. The thin hope of the people rests on this. However the previous two potato crisis has proved this point that all those efforts from the Odisha Govt. were not strong enough to win over the Bengal CM’s whim.