President promulgates two ordinances to boost to rural trade, agriculture

Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 5

President Ram Nath Kovind on Friday promulgated two ordinances cleared by the Union Cabinet on June 3 to improve rural life and boost agriculture.

The new laws are the Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Ordinance, 2020 ”for creating additional trading opportunities outside the APMC market yards and help farmers get remunerative prices” and the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Ordinance, 2020.

Agriculture Minister  Narendra Singh Tomar has written to Chief Ministers informing them of the ordinances and solicited their cooperation in implementation of the reforms and sressing the need for their continued support in the development and growth of the agriculture sector in the new reformed environment, an official statement said.  

Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh has already rejected the "so-called reforms" announced by the Centre for the agriculture sector as "yet another brazen attempt to erode and destabilise the country’s federal structure". He warned that it could pave the way for disbanding the MSP regime as well as the foodgrain procurement regime, triggering unrest among the state’s farmers.

Tomar, while announcing the decisions on Wednesday, had said that agricultural produce marketing legislations of respective states will continue. “It does not touch the mandis of states. All states are on in agreement (on the ordinance).

“Punjab and Haryana are big producers of foodgrain. The reforms will bring a major change in the lives of their farmers. They will be free to sell produce outside APMC, including on electronic platforms, and will not be charged any cess or levy for sale. There will be a separate dispute resolution mechanism for the farmers. It will promote barrier-free inter-state and intra-state trade and commerce, reduce marketing costs for the farmers and help them in getting better prices, ” the minister had said.

Tomar also made it clear that the government had no plans to scrap the MSP regime as being apprehended by farmers.

“The government will continue to buy on the support price. How can the government scrap MSP when it just announced support prices (for summer crops),” he questioned while advising those “doing politics on the issue to refrain from doing so”.

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