Though the area under the crop has increased only marginally, prospects of potato production in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Bihar are reported to be ``very good''. Good availability of seeds and inputs is being cited as the reason for the expected increase.

Uttar Pradesh is expected to top the list of potato-growing States with an anticipated production of nine million tonnes as against 6.4 million tonnes last year produce nine million tonnes of potatoes against last year's production of 6.4 million tonnes.

The Ministry said that the sowing of potato had been completed in almost all the major states including Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal,Haryana, Punjab and Bihar. No shortage of seeds is reported. Though heavy rains in mid-October caused substantial damage to the early sown crop in Punjab, only 7,000 hectares had been affected as against the sown area of 50,000 hectares.It also sought to allay fears about a shortage of potato in the next few months, saying that about 1.2 million tonnes was available in the cold storages in West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. This will be released to the market this month and December this year as the storages are normally emptied for maintainance around this time every year.