Karnataka: Congress govt to table new law on APMC

The Congress government has decided on Wednesday to introduce a new law on agricultural markets (APMC) that will replace the one enacted when the BJP was in power.

The new Bill will come up in the budget session starting July 3.

The decision was taken at a meeting chaired by Law Minister H K Patil and Agricultural Marketing Minister Shivanand Patil.

The Law minister said the new APMC Act is aimed at helping farmers, traders and even private wholesalers, besides those dependent on these markets such as coolies and other blue collared workers.

The APMC law that was passed when the BJP was in power removed restrictions on the sale of agricultural produce, thereby allowing private individuals to set up trade markets where farmers can sell. The law curtailed the powers of local Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees (APMC) and allowed private individuals to start agricultural trading - buying and selling - if they hold a permanent account number (PAN). Earlier, farmers had to sell only in notified markets or mandis.

Patil told reporters that the existing law was only aimed at weakening the APMC markets. He said therefore now is right time for the Congress government to bring back the old APMC Act with relevant amendments that will help all stakeholders involved in the running of APMC markets.

Without divulging much about the provisions of the proposed Bill, Patil maintained that the Bill is aimed at bringing all private wholesale markets under its ambit. "We will not entirely scrap the existing law. Whatever the best provisions exist to protect farmers' interests will be retained and our aim is to strengthen the APMC Act which will protect farmers interstate," he said.

Shivanand Patil told reporters that after the BJP introduced a new law, APMC markets have been incurring huge losses. "Cumulatively, the APMC markets used to earn a revenue of around Rs 680 crore, which has nosedived to around Rs 200 crore. We need to wrest this fall and need to increase revenue of the markets," he said.