The Horticulture and Agro Marketing Minister Shamanur Shivashankarappa has categorically stated that there was no going back on the decision of implementing the amended Agriculture Producers Marketing Committee (APMC) act providing level playing field for the private players in the agriculture marketing.
In a brief chat with the presspersons at the helipad at the District Police Ground in Kalaburagi city on Saturday, Mr. Shivashankarappa said that the opposition to the amended act was only from the traders and the farmers generally welcomed the provisions of the amended act. He said that there was no question of withdrawing the amended act now. However, the state government would consider the proposals for amendment of the act if necessary.
He said that the amended APMC act has been successfully implemented in Andhra Pradesh and there have been no opposition from the traders or the farmers.
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To a question on whether the government proposed to revise the support price for the Minimum Support Price fixed for the red gram by the Union Government, the Minister said that the government proposes to convene a meeting in December when the harvesting of the crop would start and take a decision on whether to revise the support price to the red gram. “The revision cannot be done after the prices of the produce crashes in the market”.
To another question, Mr. Shivashankarappa said that the state government had submitted a proposal seeking Rs. 326 crores under the National Horticulture Mission for the current year and the central government is yet to release Rs. 200 crores.