Potato traders in Northern India expect a price drop

Consumers of potatoes in the east and south of India will probably have to shell out more than his counterpart in the north, at least for the next two months. While potato prices in northern India are expected to cool off within the next fortnight as arrivals pick up from Punjab, prices will remain firm in the eastern part of the country.

In southern India too, the potato price is expected to rule high as the Karnataka crop is low compared with the previous year.

Potato traders of north India feel there will be a fall of Rs 200- Rs 300 per quintal in a fortnight with arrivals to pick up from Punjab. Currently fresh ware potato arriving in the Delhi mandi is coming from Hoshiarpur district in Punjab and Una district in Himachal Pradesh.

In Delhi’s Azadpur mandi, daily arrivals of the new crop add up to over 60 trucks of 10 tonne each. Similarly, cold storage potato arrival from Uttar Pradesh was 110 trucks daily. “With crop arrivals from Jalandhar, Amritsar and Ludhiana to begin in the next 10-15 days, prices will fall by the end of this month,” said Padam Bhushan, owner of Ishwar Das Padam Bhushan Trading Company.

In West Bengal, the second largest potato producing state in the country, the new crop will arrive by mid-January as the crop has been delayed by a month. “At present, the wholesale price of cold storage potato is ruling at Rs 750 per quintal. The price is likely to continue at this level till the new crop comes in.