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A panel of State ministers has asked the State Governments to amend the APMC Act at the earliest to create “barrier-free national market” and encourage private investment.
A committee of State ministers on agriculture marketing, headed by the Maharashtra Minister of Cooperation, Mr Harshvardhan Patil, has asked “the States to amend the Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMC) Act on the line of model act and notify the rules at the earliest.”
The model APMC Act was finalised in 2003 and the same was circulated to the State Governments for implementation in 2007. Since then, a few States have amended the Act.
Submitting the first report to the Union Agriculture Minister, Mr Sharad Pawar, the committee said that the amendment to the Act is necessary to establish a “barrier-free national market” to the farming community.
It suggested choice of multiple and competitive market channel to farmers, independent regulatory authority to encourage private investors and smooth licence and registration of traders in mandis.
That apart, the committee also stressed on measures on dissemination of market information and promotion of grading, standardisation, packaging and quality certification of agricultural produce.
It has also suggested states to waive off market fee on fruit and vegetables with the Union Government compensating the loss to APMC and single-window unified single registration for traders or market functionaries across the states.
“Investment in marketing infrastructure under Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojna (RKVY) be increased to minimum 10-15 per cent of the State's RKVY spending,” it advised.
Among other points, the committee has also advocated that the market fee should be maximum of 2 per cent of the value and commission charges should not exceed 2 per cent for food grains or oilseeds and 4 per cent for fruit and vegetables.
The other major recommendations of the committee are need for viability gap funding to attract private sector investment and agricultural markets may be treated as infrastructure project so as to invite economic source of funding of foreign direct investment (FDI) or external commercial borrowings (ECB).
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