File picture of a vendor stocking potatoes

Bhubaneswar, Sept. 15: There has been no apparent improvement in the supply of potato to the state from Bengal though food and supplies minister Sanjay Das Burma claims that the situation has improved.

The supply remains abysmally low as only 12 trucks came in the last two days when the daily requirement of potato for Bhubaneswar is 30 trucks.

A local trader said that if the state government did not take any step, the situation would turn worse in next four to five days as the tuber might just vanish from the market.

However, the officials in the food and supplies department sounded confident that the situation would become normal shortly.

The state government had hoped that the undeclared ban on supply of potato from the neighbouring state would be lifted after Bengal chief minister Mamata Bannerjee met the agitating traders in her state on September 12.

Odisha chief secretary had also written to his Bengal counterpart, seeking a lift on the ban.

However, the situation has hardly improved since then.

The wholesale price of potato in the state ranges between Rs 26 and Rs 28 per kilogram, while the retail price is above Rs 35 per kilogram.

Though the state government has been selling 2kg potato to each person through the public distribution system outlets at Rs 20 per kg, the supply is not enough.

District collectors have been told to control and monitor the sale of potato through the outlets.

Sudhakar Panda, secretary of the Odisha Byabasayee Mahasangha, said that though the traders had called off protest in Bengal, the supply had not become normal and a large number of potato-laden trucks had been detained at Lakshmannath check gate, which is the most prolific source of tuber supply.

“Today, 12 trucks from Bengal reached the city through other routes, while 10 trucks have come from our own cold storages,” said Panda.

There is hardly 3,000 metric tonnes of potato in the cold storage in Bhubaneswar, on which people of Nayagarh, Puri, Khurda and parts of Ganjam and Cuttack depend. The stock would last at the best for five days.

“We are hopeful that the situation will become normal and the government will do something to save the situation,” said the traders.

Officials in the food and supplies department expressed their helplessness in dealing with the situation. “We waited for the traders in Bengal to call off their strike. Even our chief secretary had talked to his Bengal counterpart. Things are not in our hands,” said an officer, blaming the Bengal government’s undeclared ban on potato supply to Odisha for the shortage.