Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee in the third week of July had stopped inter-state movement of potatoes and didn’t even allow truck movement carrying potatoes from Uttar Pradesh to the north-eastern states resulting in oversupply and prices falling. Prices of potatoes which stood at Rs 36 a kg 20 days ago are now commanding a price of Rs 34 a kg.
Even though Mamata Banerjee on last Tuesday allowed inter-state trade of potatoes for the next seven days on the consideration that there will be no shortage of the tuber for the state and the prices will not rise, the potato trade in Uttar Pradesh said that the sudden decision to stop movement of potatoes has disrupted the supply chain.
Potato traders of UP said that 50 per cent of their total production of 163 lakh tonnes is still lying in cold storages and it is expected that prices will fall further in the coming weeks. Arvind Agarwal, general secretary of the Federal Cold Storage Association of India said “New crop from Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh will start arriving shortly. We have huge stocks in our cold storages. That has to be liquidated first. The West Bengal government’s move to stop the inter-state movement of potatoes has forced states like Assam, Odisha, and Bihar to look at alternative sources for potatoes. Prices have started falling now.”
Patit Paban De, a member of the West Bengal Cold Storage Association said that the cold storages this year had loaded 62 lakh tonnes of potatoes. “As of now, 12 lakh potatoes are still lying in the cold storages. The state requires 4 lakh tonnes of potatoes per month. Even after meeting the state’s consumption, there will good volumes of potatoes left in the cold storage. Prices have already fallen and there are chances that it might fall further.”
Rice prices too have started falling as the kharif crop is expected to be good this year. “Prices of basmati rice at the retail end have fallen to Rs 60 per kg from Rs 75 per kg in last three months as the export market is not strong enough since other countries have penetrated global markets offering rice at a lower price compared to India,” said Suraj Agarwal, CEO of RiceVilla, a rice exporting and marketing company, India has fixed the minimum export price of basmati rice at $950 per tonne.