Retail markets across Bengal are likely to face a crisis of potatoes as merchants went on an indefinite strike from Monday against the Mamata Banerjee government’s decision to completely ban interstate trade of the produce in the wake of the recent surge in the price.

“Even though we came forward in helping the government curb potato prices, it has not been allowing us to transport our produce to adjoining states like Jharkhand, Odisha and Assam. Customers of this state do not usually consume potatoes that we sell to those states,” said Laloo Mukherjee, the secretary of the Paschim Banga Pragatishil Aloo Byabosayee Samity.

“We have called an indefinite strike with our demand that the state either keep the interstate border open or procure the amount of potatoes that we sell outside Bengal,” he added.

Currently, potato prices in the retail market are between ₹32 and ₹33 a kg. In over 500 Sufal Bangla outlets, run by the state agricultural marketing department, the price of the vegetable is ₹29 a kilo.

Potatoes stockpiled in front of a cold storage in Hooghly on Monday

A source said if the strike continued for the next three or four days, retail markets would face the consequences as it would vastly affect the demand-supply chain of the essential vegetable.

Bengal has a consumption requirement of five lakh tonnes of potatoes every month. The state has a stock of around 48 lakh tonnes of potatoes in approximately 465 cold stores.

“As the traders stopped buying potatoes from the cold storages, the supply to the wholesalers has already stopped. So, the government should intervene and take necessary action immediately to ensure the flow of the potato to the markets,” said a state government official.

As potato prices had spiralled to ₹35 a kg from at least ₹22 a kg in the retail market, chief minister Mamata Banerjee called an emergency meeting of the emergency task force on July 9 and set a 10-day deadline for officials to bring down the prices of essential vegetables. She also asked the officials to ensure that six lakh tonnes of potatoes were released from cold stores.

As a measure to arrest the price hike, members of task forces started visiting several markets and stopped interstate transportation of potatoes.

Bibhas Dey, the advisor to the potato traders’ outfit, claimed after the task force meeting that they had agreed to sell potatoes at lower rates to government-run outlets.

“We have been selling potatoes to state government-run outlets, Sufal Bangla, at a lower rate. Everything was going fine until a few days ago when police started stopping potato-laden trucks at the borders of Assam, Jharkhand and Odisha,” said Dey.

Officials in the agriculture marketing department claimed that a section of traders intentionally sold potatoes in other states for higher profit and to create an artificial crisis in Bengal at a time when Nabanna wanted to bring down the prices.

“The traders’ association did not inform the department about the decision to go for an indefinite strike. Since the potato is an essential commodity, they can’t do so without informing us. We have information that a section of traders and a dozen cold store owners are hand-in-glove in controlling the release of the potatoes to market, resulting in a price surge. We will start a probe against those cold stores soon,” said Becharam Manna, the state agricultural marketing minister.

“A week ago, they suddenly increased the price by ₹200 per bag (of 50kg). We will not tolerate such practice as the government is keen on taking care of 10 crore people, instead of a few hundred traders,” said the minister.

Manna said the state government would not bow down under the pressure of the traders’ outfit and would involve self-help groups to contact the farmers directly to release potatoes from cold stores.

“We have 493 Sufal Bangla outlets from where we have been selling potatoes at ₹29 a kilo. We have opened 100 additional points to sell potatoes at the same price. We involve members of self-help groups to purchase potatoes directly from the farmers,” he added.

However, the potato traders said they were not ready to lift the strike until their demands were fulfilled.