Upset over the move to introduce e-trading at Asia’s biggest chilli yard, chilli 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 assurances from 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 the chilli bags, but the proposals were being resisted by traders and commission agents. Though there are over 500 licences issued to traders, 150 unlicensed traders have been trading for years. Further, the concept of zero business where the traders buy the produce without entering the stock into records, has also been widely prevalent in AMC, 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 has 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-Rs.100 crore. The trading season begins in February and ends by June.
Source : The Hindu
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