KOLKATA: It looked like a street battle. Housewives jostled in the crowd on Monday noon to buy a kilo of subsidized onion in front of the mall at Lake Market. It reminds one of the long queues for kerosene in front of the ration shops during the load shedding days in the early Eighties.

Molly Mukherjee came all the way from her Kalighat residence to buy the onion selling at Rs 36 a kilo in front of the Lake Mall. Jagori Sinha dropped by on her way back home with her daughter, a student of National High School for Girls , to buy the subsidized tuber. The desperation becomes evident when one takes a peek inside the Lake Market. Onions are selling at Rs 70 a kilo. Yet the quality is not up to the mark. Physiotherapist Rita Das was shouting at the top of her voice, accusing the shop owner for giving her bad quality onions the day before despite the high price.

The scene is different for potatoes. Coming under pressure from the Mamata Banerjee government, no retailer dares to sell the 'jyoti' variety above Rs 13, but the stocks are meagre. Haggle over the potato quantity,

A shop owner also points to the 'chandramukhi' variety selling at Rs 18 or Rs 20 a kilo. "We are buying the 'chandramukhi' variety because truckloads of government monitored 'jyoti' potato reach the market late. If you compare prices of other vegetables, brinjal, cabbage or tomato, I have no choice but to opt for the 'chandramukhi' potato," said Nandita Das .

Masuma Wahab from Park Circus isn't going to the corporation market. She instead goes to the neighbouring Quest Mall to buy her weekly potato stocks at Rs 13. "There is no restriction on the quantity you buy. Onions are also selling at Rs 59 a kilo," Wahab said. Nasreen Siddque, her neighbour, also came to the mall to buy rice, dal and sugar. "Here prices are cheaper than the kirana stores. You don't have to queue up for your purchase," said Siddique. The message has reached households. Food Bazar at Baguiati is facing a rush from consumers while the Food Bazar at City Centre II has run out of stocks.

But why is it so when potatoes procured by the mall and wholesale traders are from the same 416 state cold storages? "Malls make contract purchase. They float tenders inviting traders to supply the tuber for at least six months at rates fixed beforehand. So, when prices soar in the open market, malls can keep the price low if they want," a potato trader said.

Dig a little into the potato supply chain, it will surprise you more. Fact is Bengal had a bumper potato yield this year as much as 1 crore tonnes. Potato prices were low during January because of the huge production when traders chose to send out potatoes to neighbouring states. The government didn't keep a tab on the inter-state trade then. The outgo to other states helped traders to come out of the excess supply situation in September. Stocks started dipping due to the untimely shower all over the country that took a toll on the early variety of the tuber grown in Bankura, Midnapore, Udaynarayanpur and Mashagram apart from those in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.

The Mamata Banerjee government pressed the panic button when falling stocks in state cold storage indicated that Bengal can't sustain the demand for 4 lakh tonnes of potatoes a month with the remaining stocks.

The embargo on potato export has brought Bengal back to a comfortable situation. According to government, cold storages have a stock of 13.7 lakh tonnes of tuber that will take care of the state's demand till January before the new tuber reaches market in February.

But then the government ban is having an effect on prices of commodities coming from other states. Egg is selling at Rs 4.50 each and fish for Rs 250 a kilo. BJP state vice-president of Baleswar district in Odisha Arun Beij has threatened to stop lorries carrying egg and fish to Bengal from Tuesday if his state doesn't get potato. "We gave an ultimatum to the executive magistrate on Saturday to arrange for potato. Else we will stop trucks at Jaleswar Road," Beij said.

Chief secretary of Bengal Sanjay Mitra rubbished such argument. "The government has no information about such threat. It is also not proper to relate the embargo on potato with prices on other commodities. We are concerned with potato and onion prices. The government has set up a committee exclusively for these two. Potato prices have stabilised by now," the chief secretary said.

