West Bengal Cold Storage Association is the only active Association of Cold Storages in West Bengal. The association celebrated its Golden Jubilee in 2014 and this year the 53rd Annual General Meeting is convened at The Lalit Great Eastern Hotel, Kolkata. Presently more than 90% of Cold Storages in the State are member of this Association and it is the largest and only recognized body of such units in the State.
This Annual General meeting was inaugurated by the Chief Guest – SHRI TAPAN DASGUPTA, Hon’ble MIC Department of Agricultural Marketing Govt of WB alongwith the presence of various eminent personalities like SRI PATIT PABAN DE, President of the West Bengal Cold Storage Association (WBCSA); SRI GOVIND KAJARIA, Vice President of the WBCSA; SHRI RAJESH KUMAR SINHA, Secretary, Department of Agricultural Marketing Govt of WB; DR. PRADIP KUMAR MAZUMDAR, Advisor, Agriculture to the Hon’ble Chief Minister Govt of WB & many other eminent personalities.
On this occasion, Sri. Patit Paban De, President of the Association Chairman, highlighted “The importance of the cold storages in development of agriculture especially for potato and drew attention of the authorities to various factors which affect the Industry and the related population of Labour, Farmer, Trader etc”.
In the current year, the production of potato was huge throughout the country which severely impacted the market and despite of all the efforts made by the stakeholders of the industry as well as the Government, entire stock held in store units could not be released even after extending the storage period till December-end.
In order to overcome the crisis caused due to excess production beyond 100 lakh MT, the Govt Authorities were requested to encourage cultivation of export quality potato and processing variety potato through contract farming alongwith establishment of processing industry in the neighbourhood. Domestic consumption of potato may also be increased through spreading awareness in public about nutritional value of potato as staple food; marketing of the produce can also be improved by reducing the gap between the wholesale and retail rates.
In order to arrive at reasonable rent, appeal was made to the Govt Authorities to consider appointment of a high power special committee for review of the ground reality and re-assessment of the components of actual cost for the industry and submit their recommendation on a time-bound manner within three months for fixing justified rent.
Photograph by- নিজস্ব প্রতিনিধি
Facebook Comments