Co-operative department seeks Rs 250 crore for APMC traders

Nashik: The co-operative department wants its finance counterpart to provide agricultural produce market committee (APMC) traders with Rs 250 crore for auction resumption at the facilities.
Onion auction remained suspended in the district APMCs for the past seven days because of the cash crunch triggered by the government’s decision to demonetise the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes.
Deputy district registrar Nilkant Kare admitted that onion auctions have been affected in the Nashik APMCs because of the currency note shortage. “The traders cannot do cash payment. A few APMCs may start onion auction in a day or two. We want the finance department to provide Rs 250 crore to the traders and help them pay the farmers,” he told TOI.
“We had a meeting with district collector Radhakrishan. Accordingly, the collector has sent a letter to the finance department on measures to tide over the ongoing situation,” Kare said.
The Lasalgaon APMC on Wednesday announced resumption of onion auction from Friday, but only through cheques or Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) unless the new and valid currency notes become adequately available. Onion auction at the Pimaplgaon APMC would start from Thursday.
B Y Holkar, Secretary of the Lasalgaon APMC, said non-availability of currency notes was a major challenged. “On one hand, the traders can’t make cash payment. On the other hand, the farmers want cash payment. Besides, the traders have to pay at least Rs 1 lakh while transporting their trucks to other cities. We had a meeting with the traders and bankers on the issue.”
He added, “Onion auction will begin at Lasalgaon APMC and the banks have agreed to provide cheques to traders immediately on demand. The traders will pay the farmers through RGTS.”
Retail onion prices have almost doubled at Nashik’s retail markets in the past week. Good quality onions now cost Rs 20, up from Rs 10 on November 8, and sources said the prices would rise further if auction did not resume at the earliest.
Sohanlal Bhandari, president of the Nashik District Onion Traders’ Association, said, “We have decided to start onion auction at the Pimpalgaon APMC from Thursday on an experimental basis. All payments will be done online and the farmers with bank accounts will be able to sell their produce. Based on the response at Pimpalgaon, onion auction will start in other APMCs later.”