West Bengal Cold Storage Association Organised its 60th Annual General Meeting

News Desk, News Nation 360 : The sole active association of cold storage facilities in West Bengal is the West Bengal Cold Storage Association had organised their 60th Annual General Meeting took place in Kolkata, in the esteemed presence of Sunil Kumar Rana, the WBCSA President; Subhajit Saha, the Vice President; Rajesh Kumar Bansal, the former President of the WBCSA; Patit Paban De, Tarun Kanti Ghosh, and Gobind Kajaria, former WBCSA Presidents; Dilip Chatterjee, Kaushik Kundu, Pradip Lodha, Chairman of the WBCSA District Committees, and numerous other distinguished individuals. A government programme was suggested for assisting farmers with proper grading, curing, and assortment of products, as well as standardizing these operations. Recognizing the frequent requirement for storage post-November, a request to include the added rent for the extended period in periodic rent revision announcements was made. The owners of cold storage, incurring increasing input and capital costs, sought an increase in rent to equal the prevailing rates in other potato-growing states (Rs. 230-270 per quintal). They had indicated that even

though an Expert Committee had suggested revising rent to Rs. 190 and Rs. 194 for South and North Bengal respectively, the government has not done so over the last four years, and they remain at Rs. 168 and Rs. 172. This has created fear that cold storage operations could be hindered during the next season because of owner hesitation, with more than 150 cold storages already categorized as Non-Performing Assets (NPAs). Lastly, there was a proposal to base cold storage rent on 85% capacity utilization as opposed to 100%, since 100% utilization is never possible. On this occasion, Sunil Kumar Rana, President of West Bengal Cold Storage Association highlighted that with almost 5.10 lakh hectares of land under cultivation this season, there is a noticeable amount of enthusiasm among potato growers. West Bengal consumes 65 lakh tonnes of potatoes domestically, thus the remaining supply must be sold outside the state. He projected that 135–140 lakh tonnes of potatoes would be produced this season. He asked the authorities to set up a system for releasing the stored stock at a consistent rate of 12% per month during the unloading period to guarantee a stable price and consistent supply of potatoes in the market.

Pic - Courtesy