Resisting the move to introduce e-trading at Asia’s biggest Chilli Yard, farmers and traders staged a rasta roko on the Guntur-Chilakaluripet highway. Trading at the market yard was stalled for the day and the farmers relented only after assurances from the marketing officials.
It was on Wednesday that Joint Collector Ch. Sridhar announced that the State Government was introducing e-trading to ensure transparency in chilli trading. He had even launched a pilot scheme of bar coding for the chilli bags.
But, the proposals were being resisted by the traders and commission agents. Though there are over 500 licenses issued to traders, 150 unlicensed traders had been trading for years. Further, the concept of zero business where the traders buy the produce without entering the stock into records had also been widely prevalent in the Agriculture Market Committee Marketyard, at Guntur.
While the e-trading of commodities makes it mandatory for traders to register with the AMC, the unlicensed traders were feeling the heat.
The AP Government has made changes in the A.P Marketing Act allowing e-trading in agricultural commodities replacing the conventional open auctions but the commission agents have been up in arms since they would be out of work.
In Guntur, the e-trading of commodities had been introduced on a pilot basis at the AMCs in Guntur and Duggirala. In peak trading season, over 80,000 chilli bags are traded and the volume of trade is between Rs.80 crore and Rs.100 crore. The Chilli trading season begins in February and ends by June.
