Potato prices have shown a rising trend and the commodity is being retailed at Rs 35-40 per kg in the National Capital, against 20-25 a kg till recently.
The government had last week directed NAFED and the Small Farmers' Agri-Business Consortium (SFAC) to import potatoes to improve the domestic supply in the coming months. But the two organisations have raised concerns that import of potatoes will be unviable at high import duty of 30 per cent.
Both NAFED and SFAC are gearing up to float tenders to import potatoes during the lean period up to January-end, he said.
NAFED has decided to invite expression of interest from global suppliers for import of 25,000 tonnes of potatoes before issuing full-fledged tenders, he added.
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India produced 44.3 million tonnes of potatoes in 2013-14 crop year, down 2.3 per cent from the previous year.