Sources in the Agriculture Department said 22 cold stores with a combined storage capacity of 95,800 tonnes are in different stages of construction in 13 districts.
Though the State Government has sanctioned 21 cold store projects (82,220 tonnes capacity), they are waiting for loans to be sanctioned by banks. The Department has requested the Government to take up the issue with the banks.
Presently, the State has 33 functional cold stores. Twelve districts do not have cold stores.
As the State targeted to produce 1.125 million tonnes of potato and about 142,000 tonnes of seed potato under the Mission, it needs to increase its cold store capacity to 705,000 tonnes by 2017-18.
All the ongoing cold store projects are under State plans, as the response from private sectors is not encouraging, despite huge subsidies being offered.
The Cooperation Department is planning to construct 10 cold storages with funds available with the Regulatory Market Committees (RMCs).
Under the Potato Mission, the State Government has proposed to store 50 per cent of the potato produced in Odisha and 100 per cent of seed potatoes required for planting in the cold stores by the end of the 2017-18 financial year.
In 2015, the first year of the programme, the Government had a buffer stock of 465.3 tonnes of potato. However, it decided not to maintain a buffer stock this year under the plea that marketable surplus of potato is very negligible due to poor production.
