The Tamil Nadu Foodgrains Merchants Association has urged the Chief Minister, M. Karunanidhi, to arrive at a permanent solution to the long-pending issue of market cess to protect the interest of farmers and traders.
In a memorandum submitted to the State Government, the association secretary, P. Subash Chandra Bose, said that the market cess should be collected only after establishing huge markets as had been done in other States.
Tamil Nadu, with meagre production of pulses and grains, was dependent on other States to meet its requirements. Commodities brought here from other States or countries should not be levied market cess as they do not make use of facilities of market committees here. Further, the cess should be levied only on agricultural produce directly obtained from the soil and not on by-products produced in mills.
The association also called for abolishing the permit system in market cess “as even the Department of Commercial Tax which rakes in thousands of crores in revenues to the State’s coffers does not have such a system,” a press release from the association said.
