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Potatoes rotting in storage due to erratic power

Kawsar Khan
Erratic power supply and low voltage are hampering the smooth operations of cold storage facility, destroying a significant anlount of the produce.
"My cold storage requires between 380 and 440 voltage to run smoothly but I also take the risk of running it on 370 voltage. This year I never got the required voltage that forced me to shut down my cold storage and take out potato from it,” said Kamrul Alam Chowdhury, owner of Lakshmipur Cold Storage in Lakshmipur district.
He also said the local rural electrification authorities expressed sorrow for not being able to supply required voltage.
"It was not possible for us to store all the potatoes the farmers brought to us for storage," Chowdhury added.
The sector people said acute voltage shortage is damaging the quality of potato of 271 cold storages across the country.
"Sometimes we cannot run our cold storages due to load shedding and sometimes for low voltage”, said Jasim Uddin, acting president of Bangladesh Cold Storage Association (BCSA).
The BCSA recently sent a letter to the government, urging it to ensure smooth power supply to save the industry, but there has been no action yet, Jasim added.
"Besides low voltage, the cold storages are also experiencing load shedding for between 4 and 6 hours every day. Sometimes the load shedding period prolongs,” said Rezaul Haque, owner of Uttara Cold Storage Ltd.
“During load shedding I keep my cold storage operational with the help of captive power plants, but the power generators cannot run continuously for more than 3-4 hours. After 3-4 hours I have to shut down my cold storage,” he added.
This year the country witnessed a bumper harvest of potato. The total production was 80 lakh tonnes but the cold storages of the country have a capacity of preserving 20 lakh tonnes of potato.
Around 40 percent of the total cold storage owners of the country are bank defaulters, the sector people said, blaming the government for its unfavourable policy towards the cold storage owners.
This year the government launched a potato campaign to make diversified and increased use ofthe produce, but the campaign did little to solve the long lasting problems of the farmers and the sector, the businesspeople said.
kawsar@thedailystar.net