Arhtiyas, rice millers reject draft agri policy
Showing solidarity with farmers, commission agents and rice millers have rejected the draft National Policy Framework on Agricultural Marketing.
During a discussion with a high-powered delegation of the state government, led by Agriculture Minister Gurmeet Singh Khuddian, here on Thursday, representatives of commission agents and rice millers expressed fears over the draft policy’s intent to do away with the system of mandis.
They have asked the state government to call a meeting of the Vidhan Sabha and after taking all parties on board, reject the policy, before conveying the same to the Centre. The state government has to send its observations on the policy to the Centre by January 10. Earlier, representatives of farmer unions had also rejected the policy.
“When private market yards are to be encouraged, as envisaged in the new policy, it is a clear signal that the already established mandis will not get any central support. The policy clearly encourages creation of silos by private entities and allows them to directly purchase agricultural produce from farmers. This means that commission agents will be thrown out of business,” Ravinder Singh Cheema told The Tribune.
Vijay Kalra, president of the Federation of Arhtiya Association of Punjab, said, “It’s a case of old wine in new bottle. The Centre is trying to bring back the three farm laws rejected in 2020-21, in a new format through this policy. Farmers, commission agents and labourers will all suffer, as the policy is aimed at monopolising food procurement business is favour of corporates. It will hit Punjab’s economy badly.”
The rice millers, represented by Tarsem Saini, felt while the draft policy had good aspects of encouraging crop diversification and creating infrastructure for better post-harvest handling and storage of agricultural produce, they were against the intent of the policy to do away with the present system of mandis. “This, in turn, will do away with commission agents, as produce will be bought directly by companies, without paying any fee,” he said.
This article has been republished The Tribune.