Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today directed the task force of the agricultural marketing department to keep a tab on the spiralling prices of fruits while warning traders not to sell potato outside the state. Mamata,during a meeting with traders,told them that potatoes should not be sold to other states before meeting the demand within the state. Police and task force members have been asked to take action in this regard. Rabindranath Koley,general secretary,Forum of Traders Organsiation of West Bengal and a member of the task force,said the CM has taken this step as the price of potatoes is still in the range of Rs 15 per kilo. According to the latest figures from Garihata,Manicktala and Hatibagan markets,the price of potato es is between Rs 14 and Rs 16 per kilo. Officials of the agriculture department,however,added that as of now around 32-33 lakh metric tonnes of potatoes are kept in cold storages to meet the demand of the next four months and till new varieties of potatoes reach the market in November. Since the demand for the vegetable in a month is around 5.5 lakh metric tonnes,the demand can be met easily,they added.
