Kolkata: The loading of potatoes in cold stores is scheduled to start from March 1 with 30 per cent of reserved space being made available to small and marginal farmers on a first-come-first-serve basis. Each farmer will be able to store up to the limit of 35 quintals (70 bags).
“The cold storage space is made available to the farmers during this time every year so that they can store their produce as part of an effective post harvest management after harvesting potatoes. We have increased the reserved space from 20 to 30 per cent this year to provide more space to the small and marginal farmers to store their potato produce,” said Becharam Manna, minister in-charge of state Agricultural Marketing department.
A notification recently issued by the Agricultural Marketing department for the cold store owners and district authorities has stated that the concerned district magistrates (DMs) will monitor implementation of the order and review smooth loading of potato in cold storages located in districts involving all stakeholders and periodic review at block and district level.
A senior official in the department said that this year 12 new cold storages have been set up adding 1.37 lakh metric tonne capacity over and above present capacity more than 81 lakh MT in 496 functional cold storages for potatoes.
In North Bengal districts, 10 new stores have been set up this year and will load potato for the first time, taking the total to 508 functional cold stores for potato across all districts.
The storage licensee is free to utilise the vacant portion of the space of his cold storage after March 20 and no compensation will be paid to the cold storage owners in this regard. However, there are no restrictions on farmers and other hirers to store their produce under general space as available and allotted as per applicable norms
for any hirers.