Warehousing Development and Regulatory Authority is hopeful of receiving the Centre's nod on its draft regulations on introduction of electronic warehouse receipts shortly.
Currently, negotiable warehouse receipts are issued in paper form. Introduction of electronic receipt will help create more options and lead to better price recovery for farmers, according to Mr Dinesh Rai, Chairman.
“We have already prepared the draft regulations and submitted it to the Union Government. We are waiting for those regulations to be cleared by the Centre,” Mr Rai told newspersons on the sidelines of a seminar on negotiable warehouse receipts organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry here on Friday.
Commodity exchanges willing to introduce trading in these electronic negotiable warehouse receipts should be registered with the authority.
“Exchanges need to follow certain regulations before trading in such receipts as we have to protect the interest of farmers. These exchanges will have to adhere to conditions pertaining to net worth and turnover in order to be able to get them registered with us,” Mr Rai said.
The Union Government had in October 2010 instituted the regulatory body to improve storage capacity in the country and help producers and consumers get a better deal by cutting out intermediaries and reducing wastage. The authority thereafter introduced negotiable warehouse receipts.
At present, the scheme covers 75 agricultural commodities. Close to 185 warehouses are registered under the authority. Nearly 342 applications from warehouses with a capacity of around 12 lakh tonnes have applied for registration, Mr Rai said.
Temperature-controlled warehousing
The authority is also in the process of finalising norms for facilitating registration and accreditation of temperature-controlled warehouses like cold storage.
“We have already put the draft regulations in public domain and are waiting for the Government to approve it. Things are likely to be finalised by the end of this month,” Mr Rai said.