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Potato Mission to be implemented by the Odisha government from 2015-16 to make the state self-sufficient in tuber production, is estimated to cost Rs 267.05 crore.
The scheme, to be continued till 2023-24, would be appraised by the state's expenditure finance committee. It has been proposed to earmark Rs 67.45 crore for the scheme in the State Budget for 2015-16.
The Mission seeks to ramp up tuber output in the state to 1.12 million tonne by 2017-18 up from 0.2 million tonne presently. It was decided to be implemented after the report of the potato task force was approved at a high-level meeting last month. The Mission is being taken up since Odisha faces an acute shortage of potatoes and depends on neighbouring West Bengal to meet the demand. The task force was constituted under the chairmanship of Rajesh Verma, principal secretary (agriculture & food production) to suggest a roadmap to make the state self sufficient in tuber production.
Area under potato cultivation has been envisaged to be raised to 60,000 hectare (ha) by 2017-18 from the existing 15,000 ha.
The task force has recommended establishment of 112 new cold storages by March 31, 2018 of which 82 would be sanctioned under the State Plan. The task force has also recommended providing subsidy of 50 per cent on electricity tariff for six years for the existing cold storages and the ones to come up by March 31, 2018 for storing potatoes and seed potatoes. Each cold store would have the capacity of 5,000 tonne.
The directorate of horticulture would be the nodal agency for the Mission. The programme would be monitored by the state level steering committee headed by the chief secretary and consisting of secretaries of the departments of agriculture, cooperation, water resources, food supplies & consumer welfare, energy and SC & ST development. The directorate level monitoring and implementation committee would look after the production, establishment of cold storages and rational distribution.
At the field level, the programme would be implemented through the field staff of the directorate of horticulture. Since there is an acute staff shortage at the directorate of horticulture, the task force has recommended the establishment of project management unit (PMU) with five technical and three supporting staff for a period of three years starting 2015-16 for monitoring the overall programme.
It may be noted that Odisha's daily requirement of potato is about 2,500-3,000 tonne, most of which is sourced from West Bengal. The state faced an acute potato crisis in the monsoon months of July and August after West Bengal imposed some undeclared curbs on potato supplies.
