Staple diet on the rot
HARITT is a small village, about 66 kin from Calcutta and dominated by potato-growers. The place was in news in May 1996, as potatoes worth Rs 15 million rotted inside the Polba Dadpur Cold Storage Cooperative Society Ltd (PDCSC- SL). Flies and insects are dominant in this 4,000-household village today and the people have been -forced to live inside mosquito nets. The factory inspector on his visit to assess the environmental-cum-economic damage found that the incident occured due to the leakage of ammonia which resulted in the dysfunctioning of the cold storage. Even a few days back, when this reporter visited the place, it was impossible to breathe inside the cold storage due to continuous leakage of ammonia.
the rotten potato scare pervades Ishpur, Idilpur and Balikukhari where the PDCSCSL is situated. Release of ammonia is not the lone concern but benzene hexa-chloride (BHC) pesticide, which was supplied freely by the block development officer, without caring to check whether it was banned, has added to the grave situation.
The loss imposed on the farmers of Haritt cannot be ascertained so easily as West Bengal's department of agriculture is not professionally equipped with competent statisticians or econometricians. Small farmers take loans, mortgage belongings and then grow the cash crop to get everything back. "This time they will not be able to make up for the deficits as the cooperative cannot afford to pay even half of the loss that is estimated at Rs 1.5 crores," feels Ram Chandra Ghosh, a potato-grower who owns a shop of sweets on the Chuchura-Dhaniakhali road at the entrance to Haritt.
A bigger catastrophe took place at the Hara-Parvati Cold Storage at Pursurah, about 15 kin west from Polba-Dadpur region. About 90,000 packets in two chambers were damaged in this privately-owned cold storage. At Rs 200 per bag, the economic fallouts of these two incidents will surely be serious. "This is a serious matter as Hooghly district produces on an average 15,000 tonnes of potatoes, mostly high class," said Mrinal Ghosh, chairperson, Hooghly District Central Cooperative Bank Ltd.
A staff of the PDCSCSL has pointed out that the West Bengal State Electricity Board (WBSEB) "should be pulled up for excessive load- shedding". Milan Chaudhary, general secretary, WBSEB employees union, however, said that the PDCSCSL leaders were at fault and the plea that the WBSCB transmitted power in low voltages was fabricated.
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