The Hindu : Azadpur mandi has a new name

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 08, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Azadpur mandi has a new name

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI JAN. 7. The Delhi Government today dissolved the Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee (APMC), Azadpur, and declared it as a Market of National Importance (MNI) under the Delhi Agriculture Marketing Regulation Act. It also appointed an interim committee pending the appointment of a full-fledged committee to run the affairs of Asia's biggest fruit and vegetable market that came into controversy in the last few days.

Addressing a Press conference here the Development Minister, Mr. Raj Kumar Chauhan, said in view of the heavy arrivals from different States and the positive role of APMC Azadpur in affecting the price of fruits and vegetables at the national level, it had been decided to declare the Azadpur market as MNI.

The Directorate of Agricultural Marketing in this regard had issued a notification after getting an approval from the Delhi Lieutenant-Governor, Vijai Kapoor. The three-member interim committee comprises S.S. Sidhu, Deputy Director (Development), Murari Lal, Joint Director (Horticulture) and Ajay Bisht, Member-Secretary. Mr. Sidhu has been designated as the new chairman of the MNI.

The Government would also appoint three representatives from the trade and three from among the agriculturists of States from where most of the produce arrives at the Azadpur market. Mr. Chauhan said that any market that had a turnover of more than one lakh tonnes could be designated as MNI. In the case of Azadpur, the market had an annual turnover of 42 lakh tonnes and so this decision was taken in public interest. However, all the three members from among the trading community have to be elected as this is provided in the Act.

Mr. Chauhan said the Government was determined to implement all the pending proposals for setting up an Integrated Facility Centre within the Azadpur market. This centre would have a complete line of pack-house with facilities for washing, drying, grading, sorting, standardisation and packaging. To begin with, select commodities like potato, onion, tomato, apple, kinnow, oranges and grapes would be processed in the pack-house. Besides, a shrink wrapping unit for cauliflower and cabbages is also intended to be set up to improve their shelf life.

Mr. Chauhan said a pre-cooling unit for improving the shelf life of all commodities is also proposed. These facilities would be available to all growers, exporters and other traders for value addition within the market. To begin, the capacity of these facilities would be able to cover five to ten per cent of the arrivals and setting up additional units would depend on the response and the capacity. These projects had been initiated by the APMC chairman, Rajinder Sharma, during his three-year tenure. Interestingly, the route to declare Azadpur market as MNI was adopted in order to oust the present APMC chairman, Rajinder Sharma, a close aide of DPCC president, Chaudhary Prem Singh.

Mr. Chauhan said that construction of a farmers' market at Andheria More would start within a fortnight. The Delhi Development Authority was being repeatedly requested to allot suitable plots for setting up six more farmers' markets in Dwarka, Najafgarh, Mayur Vihar, Shastri Park, Burari and Rohini, to facilitate direct marketing of commodities by growers to consumers. The prices would be cheaper by 25 to 30 per cent than regular markets and it would benefit both growers and consumers, as middlemen would be eliminated in the entire process. The Development Minister said that instructions had been issued for taking up the construction of Kisan Bhavan, an office complex for MNI Azadpur and face lifting of Azadpur market yard. He said the Delhi Agriculture Marketing Board had acquired 37 acres of land at Ghazipur in East Delhi for development of a modern market.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

New Delhi