Terminal market complexes coming up across states

To encourage private sector investment in agriculture, the Union ministry of agriculture is setting up terminal market complexes (TMCs), which, it believes, would reduce wastage of farm produce and thereby boost supply.

According to Prasanta Swain, director, marketing, ministry of agriculture, TMCs would be set up in different states. These will link farmers to markets by shortening the supply chain of perishables.

It would provide facilities such as cleaning, sorting, packing, storage, cold chain and transportation, which would help in reducing the wastage of farm produce.

“It would encourage participation of private enterprises which would be selected as promoters in the TMC project through competitive bidding and will be eligible for subsidy. Private enterprises would offer to provide up to 26% stake to producers’ associations at project inception,” Swain said.

Private enterprise could be any individual or consortium, while producers’ association could be farmer societies, registered NGOs, etc and the TMC project will be implemented as a separate company to be registered under the Companies Act, 1956.

“We have already set up TMCs in Bihar (Patna), Orissa (Sambalpur), Tamil Nadu (Perundurai), Maharashtra (Nagpur, Nasik),” says Swain.

More are likely to be set up in Chandigarh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, etc.

The Maharashtra State Agricultural Marketing Board estimates say India produces about 58.7 million metric tonnes of fruits and 109 million metric tonnes of vegetables every year. About 35-40% of this is lost due to its perishable nature and problems in storage and transport, experts said.

TMCs will establish backward linkages with farmers through collection centres, which would be located in areas that allow easy access to farmers and forward linkages through wholesalers, processing units, retail stores, etc.

Swain says integrating with farmers would be the key to the functioning of the TMC.

However, according to Yudhvir Singh, general secretary, Bhartiya Kisan Union, farmer unions have till now not been approached by the government for such projects. “The scheme looks good, but it depends on how it is implemented and how much actually would farmers benefit from it.”

Bhaskar Goswami, from the Forum for Biotechnology and Food Security, says that centralised terminals would mainly cater to exports and would not really benefit farmers.

According to New Delhi-based food policy expert Devinder Sharma, India needs a series of collection centres and food processing units at the taluka level, rather than TMCs in cities. “TMCs would mainly benefit retail chains.”