BHUBANESWAR: The state government on Wednesday admitted its failure in achieving target under ‘State Potato Mission’ launched in 2015-16.
While responding to a few supplementary questions from Pradip Maharathy and Taraprasad Bahinipati on food grain, pulses, oilseeds and vegetable production and cold storage capacity in the state, Finance Minister Niranjan Pujari on behalf of Food Supplies Minister Ranendra Pratap Swain said potato mission failed to take off from the beginning.
Taking a jibe at Maharathy, who wanted to know about the number of functional cold storages and steps taken by the state government to revive the defunct ones, Pujari said the former Agriculture Minister has done a doctorate in agriculture.
“The potato mission was launched and ended during Maharathy’s tenure as Agriculture Minister”.
“Who knows better than him as he always claimed to be a farmer first then a Minister,” Pujari said.
Pujari said there are 128 cold storages in the state, out of which 80 are defunct and only 48 are operational.