Malda dist admin forms monitoring team for potato cold storages

The Malda district administration has constituted a five-member monitoring team to ensure that the farmers do not face any problem in keeping sufficient quantities of potatoes in the cold storages. The decision came in a meeting with the cold storage owners at the Collectorate Building in English Bazar on Saturday in presence of Tajmul Hossain, Minister of State for Textiles department, with other officials of the administration. Nitin Singhania, District Magistrate Malda, discussed various problems with the cold store owners.

To prevent black marketing of potato bonds, government coupons will be given to potato farmers in advance. The potato farmers will collect the coupons from the offices of agricultural development officers in 15 blocks of the district.

Potatoes have been cultivated in more than 10,000 hectares of land in Malda this year. The yield will be good as the weather is favorable. There are a total of 15 cold storages with a capacity of keeping 1,80,000 metric tons of potatoes in several blocks having potato cultivation. The cold storage in Habibpur remains mostly empty because the level of potato production in Habibpur is low. However, this time the administration has taken the initiative to use the cold storage in Habibpur as well.

The farmers have to deposit the Kisan credit card or its equivalent three necessary documents such as Khadya Sathi card, PM Kisan and Krishak Bandhu project identity card with the potato bond delivery.

Nitin Singhania said: “Keeping various issues of potato farmers in mind, a monitoring team consisting of officials from various departments has also been constituted to monitor the problems of potato farmers. In future, potato farmers will not have any problem in storing the produce.”

Ujjwal Saha, president of Cold Storage Association, said: “Almost 13 lakh 6 thousand farmers will get potato bonds on a first come first serve basis.”