BENGALURU: With a 0.6% market fee introduced on all transactions within the Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) yards in Karnataka after the Farm Laws were introduced, a fee gets levied on every transaction made. The burden gets transferred to the consumers and there is an urgent need to repeal it, said a representative of the APMC Yesvantpur yard, which used to be Asia’s biggest wholesale market.
Vice president of the Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Ramesh Chandra Lahoti, also a trader at the City’s APMC, told The New Indian Express, “We have sent representations to the Chief Minister, State Co-operation Minister, and the APMC Director on the need to repeal the Farm Laws section pertaining to APMC. There are 38,000 traders based at APMCs across the State and all are impacted by it.”
Lahoti pointed out that any transaction inside the market yard premises alone gets taxed. “So, if someone carries out any business just outside the APMC gate, it will not attract any fee. This goads traders to carry out business away from the yard. There is an urgent need to bring about a uniform fee for all transactions. We used to have 2,800 active traders at Yesvantpur and it has come down to around 1,000 traders now,” he explained.
Since the Yesvantpur yard deals with wholesale business, even a minuscule tax imposed translates into thousands of rupees for all traders on a regular basis, Lahoti explained.
The State Government has repeatedly reiterated in the past that it would not repeal the Karnataka Agricultural Produce Marketing (Regulation and Development) (Amendment) Act 2020. The Centre introduced the Farm Laws Repeal Law 2021 and it was passed by both Houses of Parliament on November 29, 2021. It negated all three farm laws introduced in 2020 - the Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act.
Lahoti also spoke about the urgent need to launch a common portal for APMCs so that all trading is made transparent at yards. “The stock statement, accounting, the auctioning process, and other processes could all be made open if we have an open portal in place.”