Revitalization of Rivers in India Draft Policy - Isha Guru Jaggi Vasudev

Revitalization of Rivers In India
Draft Policy Recommendation
maturity indices. Indiscriminate use of pesticides is a problem. The availability of IIP
(Indian Institute of Packaging) approved designs of corrugated fibre board (CFB) boxes
for fresh horticulture produce has been limited to only a few crops. Rake availability
with railways for transporting fruits is very limited due to their demand for transport
of food grains and other bulk commodities. Wagons are not designed to transport fruit,
overheating in summer leads to damage to fruit. In the absence of BIS standards and
BEE test protocols, standards have not been set for cold chain infrastructure and their
performance testing.
Marketing: The main constraint to expand production of fruits is the system of marketing
and inadequate processing facilities. The onus for freeing market for horticultural
produce rests with the States while support of Central government is crucial for promoting
producers’ organizations and fruits and vegetable processing. Under the provisions of
the APMC Act in States, only State Governments are permitted to set up markets and it
was made mandatory to carry out buying and selling of agriculture produce only within
these markets. However, APMCs license “Adhatiyas” to carry out auction functions.
Adhatiyas tend to manipulate sales of farm produce to specific traders. This leads to lack of
transparency in auction of agriculture produce, and absence of real-time, truthful market
information regarding price and arrivals of produce. The Central Government had put in
place a Model Agriculture Produce Marketing (Development & Regulation) Act (2003) and
had been incentivizing States to adopt it. The response of States to the Model Act has
been lukewarm. Adoption of the Model Act has not resulted in enhanced investment by
the private sector in value chain management for fresh horticulture produce. Nor is there
better price discovery through direct procurement of agriculture produce under contract
farming system. Lack of organised players in the terminal markets prevents large volumes
of fresh produce being sourced by formal players, leaving the field open for thousands of
small buyers in APMC mandis across the country. The efficiency of rural primary markets
is poor due to high degree of congestion at market yards, low number of traders and nonavailability
of supporting facilities and services and private investment. All transactions
in markets should be recorded on real‐time basis, in a transparent manner which ensures
price discovery, and generates real time market information. Fruits and vegetables are
outside the purview of the Model APLM Act introduced in April 2017 to replace the APMC
Act 2003. Under the new Model Act, even the cold chain, cold storages, dry storages and
silos where commodities are stored by farmers can be notified as markets. This enables
the farmer to access a mandi or a market place as close as possible to his/her farm gate
622 Annexures