The Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs recently approved creation of a corpus of Rs. 2000 crore for Agri-Market Infrastructure Fund (AMIF).

• The fund would be created with NABARD for development and up-gradation of agricultural marketing infrastructure in Gramin Agricultural Markets and Regulated Wholesale Markets.
• It will provide the State/UT Governments subsidized loan for developing marketing infrastructure in 585 Agriculture Produce Market Committees (APMCs) and 10,000 Grameen Agricultural Markets (GrAMs).
• States may also access AMIF for innovative integrated market infrastructure projects including Hub and Spoke mode and in Public Private Partnership mode.
• In these GrAMs, physical and basic infrastructure will be strengthened using MGNREGA and other Government Schemes.
• After approval of AMIF Scheme, the interest subsidy will be provided by DAC&FW to NABARD in alignment with annual budget releases during 2018-19 and 2019-20 as well as upto 2024-25.
• The Scheme being demand driven, its progress is subject to the demands from the States and proposals received from them.

        What is APMC?

• Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) is a statutory market committee constituted by State Governments for trade in certain notified agricultural or horticultural or livestock products, under the Agricultural Produce Market Committee Act of the respective state.

What do APMCS do?

APMCs are responsible for:

• ensuring transparency in pricing system and transactions taking place in market area;
• providing market-led extension services to farmers;
• ensuring payment for agricultural produce sold by farmers on the same day;
• promoting agricultural processing including activities for value addition in agricultural produce;
• publicizing data on arrivals and rates of agricultural produce brought into the market area for sale; and
• setup and promote public private partnership in the management of agricultural markets.

What are Grameen Agriculture Markets?

• These are called by varied names like “Gramin Haats, Haats, shandies, painths and fairs etc.
• They are owned by Local Bodies (Panchayats/councils), Agricultural/ Horticultural Departments of State Governments, Cooperatives, Marketing Boards/APMCs and Private Sector.
• As per information provided by State Agricultural Marketing Boards/State Governments, there are 22941 Rural Haats.
• State Marketing Boards provided only numbers without other information like location, etc on village haats under local bodies and under private sector.
   

  Important announcements for agriculture made in the interim budget 2019- Micro irrigation fund Rs. 5,000 crore Dairy Processing and Infrastructure Development Fund (DIDF) Rs. 10,881 crore Agri Market Infrastructure Fund – Rs. 2,000 crore Rs. 10,000 crore for both Fishery & Aquaculture and Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development Fund