Reform the Agriculture Produce and Marketing Committee APMC act

By Harit Lakhani

The introduction of the Agriculture Produce and Livestock Marketing Act, in 2017 has shifted the focus from regulation, as under Agricuture Produce Market Committee (APMC) Act, to promotion and facilitation.

As per Report of Expert Committee on Integration of Commodity Spot and Derivatives Markets, issued by the Department of Economic Affairs Ministry of Finance Government of India (February 2018, Page 132), states such as Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, have implemented changes to their APMC laws, other such as West Bengal, Arunachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, have not made any such amendments. Further, some states, such as Bihar have repealed their APMC laws. States such as Uttar Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh have also brought in required changes in their laws. However, states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh still have not done so.

As per the Dalwai Committee Report 2017-18 (Volume IV), there are close to 29,547 marketing points. Of these, 22 per cent or 6,615 are regulated markets under the APMC and 22,932 are regional periodical markets (RPMs). Out of these 6,615 markets, the NAM scheme aimed to bring 585 markets (9 per cent) on the e-market platform by the end of the financial year 2017-18.

As on March 2018, all targeted mandis, that is, 585 that are in 16 states and two Union Territories (Chandigarh and Puducherry) have been integrated with the NAM platform.

But these 585 mandis brought only 90.5 lakh farmers on the platform, that is less than 7 per cent of the 14 crore Indian farmers.

Source

Considering, the government has pushed through the amendment through the Parliament and majority of the states have modeled their laws accordingly, the progress, therefore, is marked as “Adequate Progress”