Central government will launch mobile app to record mandi transactions under new Bill

On Monday, The Monsoon Session in Parliament began in which , The Farmer’s Produce Trade and Commerce Promotion and Facilitation Bill, 2020, which was presented infornt Lok Sabha by Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar it includes a provision that the centre contains a digitalization for a traders, modalities of trade transactions, and mode of payment of the schedule farmers’ produce in a trade area. A trade area has been defined as an area that is outside regular mandis.

With the help of these provisions the Central Officials will get to know about information about any unfair trading activities are being conducted outside the mandis and there is need to record the quantity sold as well as the price.

The member of NITI Aayog Ramesh Chand took the example of that ” In India milk is purchased by millions of households almost on a daily basis for at least 200 days a year, while a crop is sold only five to six times in a year or sometimes 10. Tell me who keeps a record of how much milk was purchased to whom on a daily basis. In the beginning, we wanted to keep all such transactions absolutely free, but the Ordinance does have provision to introduce methods through which transactions can be recorded and trade registered.

Today Tomar has introduced two agriculture bills in the Lok Sabha, one was on contract farming to replace Ordinances promulgated earlier. But there was strong opposition from the Congress and some other opposition parties.

While Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Raosaheb Danve, proposed a third Bill to rectifying the Essential Commodities Act of 1956, to delist some agricultural items. Introducing the bills, Tomar assured upper house that the system of Minimum Support Price will be there.