Odisha announces 50% subsidy for cold storage of potatoes
In Odisha, the production of potatoes meets only about 20% of the state’s needs while the annual requirement of potatoes is about 13 lakh tonne.
Six years after their ‘potato mission’ to attain self-sufficiency in its production ended in an embarrassing failure due to lack of enough cold storages, the Odisha government on Monday announced a 50% subsidy on electricity tariff to cold storages to stock the tuber.
The state agriculture and farmers’ empowerment department in a notification announced a three-year subsidy scheme from 2024-25 to 2026-27 for cold storages with the capacity of 500 tonne or more. Under the policy, a cold storage owner has to provide storage facility to farmers/farm producer organisations of Odisha who are cultivating potato, agricultural and horticultural produce, the failure of which will lead to the payment of electricity tariff subsidy being stopped immediately and recovery process will be initiated.
The decision to provide subsidy to cold storage owners came a month after the state faced a potato crisis as neighbouring West Bengal, which provides much of the state’s annual demand, ceased its supply. In Odisha, the production of potatoes meets only about 20% of the state’s needs while the annual requirement of potatoes is about 13 lakh tonne. Odisha produces only about 2-2.5 lakh tonne of potato annually, with a crop coverage of about 14,000 hectares.
Odisha launched its potato mission in 2015 with a provision of 50% subsidy in electricity tariff for cold storage owners. However, the production of potatoes actually went from 3.02 lakh tonne in 2015-16 to 2.90 lakh tonne in 2018-19. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) audited the achievements of the potato mission in 2019 and pulled up the state government over its failure in establishing cold storages as only 21 could be set up in three years against a target of 55.
Officials said the primary reason for the failure was the electricity subsidy, which was supposed to be provided to cold storages in 2015-16, but actually came in 2021. By then, several cold storage facilities that had started their venture with bank loans, wound up due to lack of business viability.
Odisha has about 36 functional cold storages as of now and needs at least three times the number to store agricultural produce such as potatoes and onions to offset the impact of price rise. As many as 13 districts in the state do not have cold storage facilities, resulting in surplus vegetables, fruits, and other perishable agrarian produce, including potatoes, going into waste.
Farmer leaders said more than bigger cold storages, mini cold storage facilities need to be developed in every Gram Panchayat in the cooperative sector, with greater participation of the producers/farmers for direct better benefit and accessibility of the producers and consumers round the year.
“For the protection of the farmer’s interest crop insurance facility must be mandatory. High yielding/improved seeds as per the need of the farmers location wise must be stored in the cold store in advance for required timely supply and availability to the growers. Subsidised farm machineries and implements need to be timely made available to the farmers for best benefit on crop production process to boost up crop productivity,” said Braja Sundar Mishra, president of the Koraput Farmers Association.