Date:10/01/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/01/10/stories/2004011000090900.htm

National

Farm organisations to be consulted on reforms

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, JAN. 9 . Even as a majority of States is said to have endorsed the Government's proposal on agriculture marketing reforms, the Agriculture Ministry has said that farm organisations would be consulted to arrive at a consensus on the reforms in the land policy sector.

Some of the States had suggested at the National Conference on Agricultural Marketing here on Wednesday that setting up of private markets could be tried first for horticultural produce, agro-processing industries and export promotion.

On leasing of land, it was felt that further discussions and wider consultations were required.

In his concluding remarks, the Agriculture Minister, Rajnath Singh, requested the States to suitably adopt the Model Act on Agricultural Marketing within a year.

He allayed fears of the States on revenue receipts of the Agriculture Produce Marketing Committees, saying that since the proposed marketing reforms would plug mis-utilisation and theft of the `mandi' tax and also increase transaction volumes there was no possibility of a reduction in the revenue receipts.

States could raise other resources revenue if there was a fall in the `mandi' revenues, he said.

He assured the States that the reform measures would not affect the farmers' ownership rights over their land and that the land leasing was suggested to be within the limits of land ceiling.

Later, Mr. Singh told mediapersons that the interest on crop loans could be further cut from nine per cent.

Other initiatives for the farm sector include opening of kisan call centres and krishi television channel later this month.