The Centre's demonetisation has adversely hit the agriculture sector and if “corrective measures” are not taken immediately, all agriculture marketing produce committees (APMCs) will have to remain shut for at least two months, said Porbandar BJP MP Vithal Radadia.
Mr Radadia and other Gujarat BJP leaders, who are also connected to the State's powerful cooperative sector, are set to meet the BJP president Amit Shah in Bharuch where he is scheduled to attend a social event on Tuesday.
"First of all, we have to understand that the agricultural economy cycle is cash-based — from buying seeds to pesticides and fertilizers and labour and selling produce is effected on cash-based transactions," Mr Radadia, who is also chairman of Rajkot District Central Cooperative Bank, told The Hindu.
Transactions banned
According to him, the RBI has barred all district central cooperative banks, which are linked to millions of farmers , from exchanging old notes with new notes and also disbursing new currency notes.
"In my bank, there are one million farmers holding accounts but they cannot do any transaction in the bank because of the RBI's directive. This has to go, otherwise millions of farmers will have nowhere to go for transacting their banking activities,” Mr Radadia said.
There are 18 district central cooperative banks with 2200 branches spread across the State and cater to millions of people, mostly farmers.
Another BJP leader Dilip Sanghani, a former MP and agriculture minister of Gujarat warned: “If the farmers are not allowed cash transactions, entire rural and agriculture based economy will take a severe hit."
Milk producers unpaid
According to him, through cooperative banks, cooperative dairies in Gujarat make payments to the millions of milk producers. "In our dairies, payment is made once in 10 days to the milk producers and more than 50 per cent producers ask for cash payment because they have to purchase cattle feed using cash," he explained. Mr Sangani said he would meet Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on the issue on Tuesday.
The 207 APMCs across Gujarat have been shut since the demonetisation was announced by the Prime Minister on November 8.
"At least for next two weeks, most of the APMCs will remain shut for trading because traders have no money to make payments while farmers are not used to taking cheques," said Congress legislator and chairman of Jamnagar APMC Raghavji Patel.
