From Aug 14, you can buy fresh fruits, veggies directly from farmers

Come August 14 farmers will be able to sell their produce to consumers directly with state government launching Athavade Bajaar (weekly markets) for weeding out the middlemen. These markets will be organised only for selling fresh vegetables and fruits.

Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said the first such weekly market would be held on August 14 at Vidhan Bhavan, where farmers and women's self-help groups would be able to sell their produce.

Minister for cooperation Subhash Deshmukh informed that the Maharashtra State Agricultural Marketing Board's Pune office would be coordinating these markets. The state has done away with the APMCs (agricultural marketing marketing committees) where farmers used to be dependent on market-linked forces as well as middlemen for reaching out to customers.

Deshmukh added that the responsibility of availing due permission from the local bodies, including municipal corporations or councils, for organising the markets and the stalls for the farmers or farmers' cooperatives or self-help groups would lie with the Board (Pune).

The government has decided to create a mechanism for market intervention to stabilise the prices of commodities; the state marketing department would work as the nodal agency for market intervention over onion prices. The funding for the same would be availed from the Centre's prices stabilisation fund. For pulses, the department of food and civil supplies and consumer protection would work as the nodal agency and take the appropriate decision of market intervention for controlling prices of pulses as and when required.