THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOOD PROCESSING INDUSTRIES
(SHRI RAMESWAR TELI)
(a): Agricultural marketing is a state subject and wholesale agricultural marketing is undertaken by the network of 6,946 regulated wholesale markets, set up under the provision of respective State Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Act. During lockdown, APMC markets were opened with social distance and sanitary protocols to avoid spread of novel corona virus. Further, in order to facilitate sale of agriculture produce including perishable produce during the Covid-19, the Government had issued advisories to States/Union Territories (UTs) to facilitate Direct Marketing and allow trade-transactions outside the mandi-yards by liberalizing regulations to decongest the mandis as well as to facilitate direct buying of farmers’ produce from their farm gate at remunerative prices.
The Government also issued advisories to States/UTs to ensure inter-state and intra- state movement of vehicles carrying the agriculture produce in addition to setting up of monitoring cell to keep watch and extend immediate help for seamless movement of such vehicles including coordination for issue of permits to trucks. States also made various arrangements including nomination of nodal officer for coordination and setting up monitoring cell to facilitate free movement of vehicles carrying fruits, vegetable and other essential food items.
Further, to address the transportation issues of Farmers and other stake holders during Covid-19, the Government has launched the Kisan Rath Mobile App on 17.04.2020. The App facilitates the Farmers, FPOs and Traders to post their load requests which are sent to transport aggregators and individual transporters who can respond to the load requests.
To ensure the continuous supply of essential goods, hindrance free movement of transportation & real time monitoring of supply & prices, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare had created a Whatsapp group in coordination with senior officials from State Agriculture Marketing Boards (SAMBs) to monitor the functioning of APMCs, monitor supply & price of essential goods & facilitate inter-state transportation of essential goods during COVID-19 lockdown.
(b): Operation Greens Scheme, being implemented by Ministry of Food Processing Industries, has been extended from tomato, onion and potato (TOP) crops to other notified horticulture crops for providing subsidy for their transportation and storage from surplus production area to major consumption centers for the period of six months on pilot basis.
(c): The scheme guidelines were notified and uploaded in the Ministry''s website on 11.06.2020. Total 19 fruits and 14 vegetables have been notified under the Scheme. Under the scheme, the there is a provision for subsidy at the rate of 50% of the cost of transportation of notified crops from surplus production cluster to consumption center; and/or hiring of appropriate storage facilities, in case their price in the notified production clusters meet any one of the following conditions:
i. Price fall below preceding 3 years’ average market price at the time of harvest;
ii. Price fall more than 15% compared to last year market price at the time of harvest;
iii. Price fall less than the benchmark price for procurement, if any, fixed by the State/Central Government for a specified period;
From Tamil Nadu State, 47 number of production clusters for the different horticulture crops namely Amla (Nelli Kai), Banana, Beans, Carrot, Guava, Mango,Onion, Papaya, Passion fruit and Tomato crops have been notified in the “List of eligible crops, selected surplus production clusters & trigger price” for intervention under the Extended Operation Greens Scheme. The farmers from Tamil Nadu can register on the online portal and can submit the claim for subsidy after meeting the eligibility criteria stipulated in the scheme guidelines. So far, 152 applicants from Tamil Nadu have registered on the portal.
(d) & (e): Government has promulgated “The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation), Ordinance, 2020” to promote barrier-free inter-state and intra-state trade in farmers’ produce to facilitate remunerative prices to farmers in trade areas.
As informed by Government of Tamil Nadu, in the State 282 Regulated Markets are functioning under the control of 26 market committees where necessary infrastructure facilities like Transaction shed, Storage godown, trader shops, cold storages, farmers rest room, toilet facilities etc., are available for the benefit of the farmers. As per the Tamil Nadu Ordinance No:6 of 2020 the private market, private market sub yard (Ware houses, cold storages, Silo), Direct marketing are declared as deemed market. This will increase the mandi facilities for farm produces. In Tamil Nadu 111 cold storages, 64 primary processing centres are available for the benefit of the farmers.
(f): The Government has implemented National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) scheme, an online virtual trading platform to provide farmers and Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) with opportunity to directly sell their produce from their collection center at remunerative prices through competitive online bidding system. So far, 1000 wholesale regulated markets across 18 States and 3 Union Territories (UTs) have been integrated with e-NAM platform.
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