BANGALORE: Merchants' organisations, which have been boycotting trading at Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) yards across the State in protest against the proposed APMC Bill, have decided to call off the strike.

The decision was taken following the assurance given by Minister for Agricultural Marketing Sharanabasappa Darshanapur, according to the former president of the Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce and Industry K. Anandan.

Meeting

He told presspersons here on Friday that Mr. Darshanapur had convened a meeting of trade bodies to discuss the pros and cons of the proposed Bill in his chambers.

Traders would intensify their agitation if the Government tried to get the Bill passed in the ongoing legislature session, he added.

Amendments

The intended amendments to the existing APMC Act will accommodate corporate farming that is detrimental to small farmers.

Besides, it would also result in the boom of private markets and cause an estimated 26 per cent business loss particularly to small traders, Mr. Anandan said.

Bangalore Grain Merchants' Association president Subbaraya Shetty said that the proposed amendments to the APMC Act would open the floodgates to multinational companies at the cost of local farmers and traders.

The Government should restrain itself from committing another "historic blunder" by adopting the Bill, he said.

The Government, which was now witnessing farmers committing suicide, would witness traders committing suicide in future if the Bill was not withdrawn, he said.

Threat

Wholesale Food Grain Merchants' Association president Bharat Shaw said that the proposed amendments to the APMC Act would create job security threat to over 75, 000 employees of the APMCs and even lead to large-scale unemployment.

The Act, if amended, could not prevent the boom of commodity market.

Rise in prices

As a sequel the price of food grains, particularly pulses would go up by another 30 per cent. For instance, the price of a kg of wheat was Rs. 7 before the advent of commodity market. Now it was Rs. 18.

The proposed amendments would help only rich sellers and middlemen and not growers and small traders, he added.

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