Reported by Chinmaya Dehury

Bhubaneswar, July 14:

After the Centre gave a free hand to the states to set their own stock holding limits of perishable items, including potato and onion, in the essential commodities list, the Odisha government is now engaged in the process to fix its own limit on the storage of onion and potato to prevent hike in the price of the two commodities.

potatoAccording to government sources, Bhubaneswar, where there is increasing demands of onion and potato due to the high population, will have a chart for wholesale traders separate from the one for the other  four Municipal Corporations.

The storage limit for for potato has been fixed at 1000 quintals and onion at 500 quintals for Bhubaneswar, said sources.

The four other Municipal Corporations - Berhampur, Sambalpur, Cuttack and Rourkela - will have a smaller stock limit than Bhubaneswar while the limit in other places of the state would be even lower than in these four Municipal Corporations.

Stock limits would be fixed for retailers too, sources said. “Once the decision is vetted by the Law Department, notification would be issued to all the wholesalers and retailers. If anyone stocks more than the prescribed limit, he or she will be penalised as per law,” said an official in the Food and Consumer Affairs department.