Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, Sept 18: In a bid to meet the growing demand of potatoes in the state, the government has decided to set up a state-of-art potato seed production centre, sources said Sunday.
Bangalore-based Utkal Tubers India Private Ltd (UTIPL) will set up the centre for which the state government will provide land to the company on lease, sources said.
The directorate of horticulture has identified 50 acres of land at two places for the company to produce superior quality potato seeds. About 10 acres of land has been earmarked at Deras in Khurda district for establishing a tissue culture laboratory for production of one lakh metric tonne potato seeds to cater to the state’s demand.
About 40 acres of land has been indentified at Semiliguda in Koraput district, where a seed multiplication centre will be set up.
The UTIPL will establish the required infrastructure and seed multiplication at its own cost. The total cost of the project is likely to be around `20 crore.
However, the state government will provide infrastructure support like road connectivity, electricity and water supply to the project sites, sources said.
In April this year, agriculture department had signed a MoU with the UTIPL to produce quality potato seeds in the state to meet its demand.
For the last few years, the state has been facing a potato crisis as it is unable to produce potatoes in sufficient quantity and is always depends upon others states like West Bengal, Punjab and Uttarakhand for meeting the shortage.
The farmers in the state have also not shown interest in cultivating the tuber in large quantities due to non-availability of quality potato seeds. To resolve the issue, the government has taken this decision for setting up of the centre to produce quality seeds for the farmers, they said.
