Treat warehouses as deemed market-yards: Panel

To improve market linkages for the farmers, the warehouses registered with the warehousing development and regulatory authority (WDRA) should be designated as deemed market-yards under the states’ agricultural produce market committee (APMC) act, an expert committee set up by the agriculture ministry on Tuesday stated.

The committee has stated declaring warehouses, silos and cold storages as ‘deemed market yards’ would reduce post harvest and transportation losses and address the issue of distress sales by farmers.

It stated that while a majority of states have made this provision in their APMC act, several states have not framed the rules to make storage facilities as mandi yards. “It is only the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh, which have notified rules also to implement it,” the committee has stated.

So far 5634 warehouses are registered with WDRA. Out of 0.1 million agri-warehouses in the country, 40,000 are privately held.

The committee also noted that there has been no progress of trading of e-NWRs on the electronic-national agriculture market (e-NAM). It stated that to facilitate inter-state trade via e-NWR through eNAM and other registered e-trading platforms, the centre may set up an ‘authority’ for the purpose.

The committee has suggested providing incentives for prompt repayment of loans availed by the farmers against e-NWR while similar similar facilities are available for loans upto Rs Rs 3,00,000 taken on Kisan credit cards (KCCs).

The committee has recommended agriculture ministry to take up the matter with department of financial services, RBI to reduce the risk weighted average on eNWR loans; and with NABARD also to offer some incentive to banks using eNWRs for pledge loans.