22,000 Rural Godowns to be Created for Farm Produce: Shri Pawar

Negotiable Warehouse Receipts to Enhance Farmers’ Competitiveness in Markets - Parliamentary Consultative Committee of Agriculture and Food Ministries Meets


The Government has launched a scheme of construction / renovation of rural godowns for providing for the scientific storage in the rural areas by incentivizing private sector to invest in this area. More than 22,000 godowns with a capacity of about 27 million tonnes have already been sanctioned. This was stated by Shri Sharad Pawar, Minister of Agriculture, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution while addressing the meeting of the Consultative Committee of his Ministry here today.

The Minister said, “The farmers often sell their produce in distress to square off their debts soon after harvesting. Solution for this problem lies in providing them access to safe and scientific storage and easy marketing credit through a network of rural godowns and negotiable warehouse receipt system. The Warehouse Regulation and Development Authority has already been set up and the Department of Food and Public Distribution is in the process of finalizing the Rules for implementation of negotiable warehouse receipts by the warehouse / rural godowns. These initiatives would lead to a nationwide integration of agricultural markets and enhance the competitiveness of Indian farmers in national and global markets.”

Stressing on the importance of agricultural marketing for the agriculture sector, Shri Pawar informed the members, “To mainstream farmers to take advantage of free and competitive market and to access global markets for remunerative returns of their produce, we need to support development of a modern and a highly efficient market structure in the country so that there is a seamless flow of goods and commodities. Unfortunately, even now, despite substantial progress in several fields of the economy, good market infrastructure, with modern facilities for price discovery, storage, grading and processing is not very well developed in our country.”

The Minister pointed out that lack of an advanced marketing network with the State Governments alone empowered to set up markets for agricultural commodities has deprived the producers from what is rightfully theirs with a large number of intermediaries taking away a sizeable portion of their share. Besides, multiples taxes, entry fee, etc. have a cascading effect on prices of commodities and act as interstate trade barriers.

On the implementation of market reform measures Shri Pawar said, “ Agriculture Ministry had circulated a Model APMC Act for the guidance of States during 2003 to promote direct marketing of agricultural commodities from the producing areas and the farmers’ fields, without the necessity of going through licensed traders and regulated markets. The Ministry has also framed Model APMC Rules during 2007 for the guidance of the States and to complete the process of reforms. In our view, these arrangements will provide an effective method of linking small farm sector to agro-processing industries and to sources of extension advice, seeds, credit and to assured and profitable markets.”

About amendment to State Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee Acts the Minister said, “17 States have already amended their APMC Acts, while Bihar has repealed its Act. In addition to this, Punjab and Haryana have partially amended their Acts. This has already started attracting investment in post-harvest marketing infrastructure including processing, storage etc. To accelerate the pace of market reform at State level, the Government has set up a Committee of State Ministers, in-charge of Agricultural Marketing under the Chairmanship of Minister of Agricultural Marketing and Cooperation, Maharashtra, with corresponding Ministers from Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Assam and Bihar. The Committee has already met four times this year and arrived at some very important recommendations. The Committee is deliberating over issues such as setting up of independent market regulatory body, unified registration process for private market, direct marketing and contract farming to promote private investment in the sector.”

Terming the response of Terminal Market Complex scheme as very good, the Minister said that the Government has already approved TMC Project in Patna (Bihar) and Perundurai (Tamil Nadu). In principle approval has already been provided to the Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra for setting up of TMC at Chennai, Madurai, Nagpur and Thane respectively, he added. Shri Pawar said that more than 3000 markets have already been covered under the Scheme providing Internet connectivity to important agriculture markets in the country. Presently, wholesale prices of 300 commodities and about 2000 varieties are being reported on the AGMARKNET portal from more than 1900 markets.

The Minister of State for Agriculture, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Prof. K.V Thomas was also present in the meeting. MPs who participated in the meeting included Shri Dhruva Narayana Rangaswamy, Shri M. Krishnaswamy, Shri K.P. Dhanapalan, Shri Kadir Rana, Shri Janardhana Swamy, Shri Govinda Chander Naskar, Sardar Sher Singh Ghubaya, Shri K.C. Venugopal and Smt. Santosh Chowdhary of Lok Sabha, Shri Govindrao Adik, Dr. K.P. Ramalingam, Shri T.M. Selvaganapathi and Ms Mabel Rebello of Rajya Sabha.

(SOURCE- PTI)