Bhubaneswar: “The potato mission of the previous government has failed in Odisha. Taking advantage of this, the West Bengal government is doing petty politics in supplying potatoes to Odisha,” Deputy Chief Minister Kanak Vardhan Singh Deo told the Assembly on Wednesday.
Replying to a question raised by MLAs Ashwini Patra and Ganeswar Behera, Singh Deo said that most of the cold storages in the state have not actually been closed due to lack of electricity. Instead, the previous BJD government in the state had entrusted the responsibility of managing the cold storages to an economic group. The latter mortgaged the cold storages leading to their closure, he added.
The Deputy Chief Minister assured the House that the government is considering alternative farming diversification in the state to meet the potato demand. Henceforth, emphasis will be on increasing potato cultivation and production in the state. And to store the potato production every year, the government has planned construction of 58 cold storages. These cold storages will will run on both electricity and solar power, the minister replied.
