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The Maharashtra government intends to bring back the Ordinance amending the Agricultural Produce Marketing (Development and Regulation) Act, 1963 soon, a highly-placed source in the State marketing department told BusinessLine . It is understood that a committee has been formed to listen to the concerns of different stakeholders and to tweak the Ordinance and present it before the State Legislative Assembly in the summer session.
The State government had withdrawn the Ordinance last week from the Upper House, following protests by APMC markets.
The Ordinance sought to remove all farm produce (including livestock) from the purview of the Agriculture Produce Market Committee. It also proposed to grant ‘Markets of National Importance (MNI)’ status to the large mandis in Maharashtra to facilitate exports and easy inter-State trade. Currently, only the Azadpur fruit and vegetables mandi in Delhi has MNI status.
The APMC markets, which resumed work last week after the State government withdrew the Ordinance, are furious again.
Fear of loss of income
These markets fear loss of income if the Ordinance is passed in its original form, say market observers.
In the form it was cleared by the Lower House of the State, the Ordinance sought to not just de-list agri commodities from the purview of the APMC, but also take away the power of the APMC to charge for trades that happened outside their defined area.
There are a total of 307 APMC markets in Maharashtra. These charge a cess of one per cent of the trade value. The Vashi APMC, the largest mandi in Maharashtra, collects about ₹60 crore in cess in a year. It is worth mentioning that while the Maharashtra government delisted fruits and vegetables from APMCs in July 2016 itself, even today farmers, who sell fruits and vegetables in a private market, are forced to pay the cess to the APMC.
Farmer organisations of the State are keeping their fingers crossed on the Ordinance. They hope that it will give them the freedom to sell wherever and to whomsoever they desire. Today, farmers are forced to sell their produce at the price quoted by the commission agents in the APMC in their area.
Yogesh Thorat, Managing Director of MAHA Farmer Producer Company, a consortium of FPCs in the State, said, “If this amendment is passed, it would help bring private investment for setting up markets and creating the infrastructure needed for agriculture marketing.”
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