Tobacco auctions resumed on Monday on the floors of Andhra Pradesh, after the auctions were disrupted for three days last week over GST issue.

Auctions could not be conducted on Thursday, Friday and Saturday as the trade as well as farmers stayed away from the floors.

The Indian Tobacco Association (ITA) President, M. Umamaheswara Rao, said the trade had decided to resume the auction process, as "we do not want to put farmers to any inconvenience. However, this is not an issue which affects the trade only, farmers will also be adversely affected. Therefore, we are holding a meeting on Monday night and later we will hold discussions with farmers, explaining to them our position. Jointly, we may take a decision on the future course of action."

He said the ITA had sent representations to the GST Council, the Union Finance Minister, the Prime Minister and others but "so far there has been no positive response''.

He said there was no truth in the statement issued by some of the farmers' leaders that GST would have no impact on the farmers and therefore the trade look after its own interests and not cause any inconvenience or loss to the farmers.

"The entire sector will be affected by GST," he said.

Till now 50 million kgs of tobacco has been sold on the floors of the State at an average price of Rs 140 a kg. The actual production may be around 104-105 million kg against the authorised crop size of 130 million kg.

Published on June 19, 2017