After receiving flak from his political opponents over price rise, Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar is now trying to win them over.
Acting on a request from Left leaders, Pawar will provide transport assistance to the farmers of West Bengal to help them export potatoes in a competitive international market.
The Uttar Pradesh government — led by UPA’s political opponent BSP — has also forwarded a similar request to the Agriculture ministry and Pawar may oblige Mayawati with a one-time subsidy as well, said sources.
This year, both West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh witnessed a bumper production of potatoes.
In West Bengal, the yield is expected to reach 95 lakh metric tons.
The Left-front government immediately followed it up with a request to Pawar asking him to provide a transport subsidy to potato farmers.
This, according to CPI(M) leader in Lok Sabha Basudeb Acharia, will help the farmers compete at the international market’s competitive bidding.
After a few rounds of negotiations, Pawar has agreed to provide a transport assistance of Rs 3 per kg of potato.
Pawar informed Acharia today that he has already released Rs 10 crore on this account in the first installment. The next installments would be released by the Union government after assessing the exports.
The Left leaders had pointed out to Pawar that to arrange regular supplies to all these countries, the farmers would require at least 10 refrigerated containers daily and a minimum of 200 such containers would be required to meet all export orders.
As the state government doesn’t have its own containers, it had requested the Union minister to give financial assistance to hire the containers.
In 2007 and 2008, similar assistance was provided to the farmers by the Centre. “There is great demand for West Bengal potato not only in Singapore but also in Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan, China and Thailand,” Acharia said.
After Bengal managed to secure the special assistance, UP quickly moved in and wrote to Pawar asking for similar subsidies. Pawar is likely to accept UP’s demand and help its farmers export potatoes.
