Commodity Boards Should Become Facilitators: Panel

All major commodity boards, including tea, coffee, rubber, spices, marine products and agricultural products should move towards complete deregulation and turn facilitators rather than being providers of services.

This has been suggested by the P P Prabhu Committee. The one-man committee on commodity boards, set up in last October, submitted its report to commerce minister Murasoli Maran, here today.

The panel has also suggested the revamp of auction rules and procedures for tea and coffee, shift in emphasis from mere development and production to competitiveness, improvement in quality of service in commodities sector like research, phasing out of old schemes and moving towards productivity improvement.