Himachal Pradesh to hike licence fee of apple commission agents

SHIMLA: To ensure that apple growers are not cheated by commission agents of their hard earned money, the Himachal Pradesh government is going to tighten the existing law by amending the Himachal Pradesh Agricultural and Horticultural Produce Marketing (Development and Regulation) Act, 2005. To this end, the government plans to table a bill in the coming monsoon session of the assembly to increase the licence fee of commission agents to Rs 50 lakh.
In the last apple season, farmers were duped of crores of rupees by commission agents who went underground after selling the produce brought from farmers on credit.
Agriculture minister Dr Ram Lal Markanda held a meeting with the law department officials last week to discuss the proposed amendment. He said the government was serious about safeguarding the interests of farmers and considering hiking the security fee to Rs 50 lakh so that growers could be paid from the security deposit in case they were cheated. He said FIRs had been registered against some commission agents for fleecing the farmers, while in some cases licences had also been revoked.
Sources said that in the last apple season, around three dozen commission agents had cheated farmers of several crores of rupees by not paying the amount in return for their apple produce. Following protests by farmers, the state government is mulling making the licensing process for the commission agents tougher. As a deterrent, it is planning to make it mandatory for commission agents to deposit all the required documents along with Rs 50 lakh security fee before issuing the licence. In case a commission agent fails to pay farmers, then the agriculture produce market committee of the district concerned will make the payment from this security money. In case the payment is much more than the deposited amount, a legal recourse would be adopted, sources added.
During the previous Congress regime, then chief minister Virbhadra Singh had also increased the license security fee of commission agents to Rs 25 lakh in 2016. The decision was even challenged in the state high court.