Farmers, 'mandis' operated by agriculture market committee exempted from lockdown

Farmers engaged in agricultural activities, wholesale vegetable markets operated by Agriculture Produce Market Committee and manufacturing and packaging units of fertilisers, pesticides and seeds have been exempted from the purview of the 21-day lockdown announced to combat coronavirus.

In additional guidelines issued by the Home Ministry, agencies engaged in procurement of agriculture products, including Minimum Support Price (MSP/operations were exempted from the lockdown) mandis operated by the Agriculture Produce Market Committee or as notified by the state government, farming operations by farmers and farm workers in the field have been exempted from the purview of the lockdown, the fresh guidelines said.

Custom hiring centres (CHC) related to farm machinery, manufacturing and packaging units of fertilisers, pesticides and seeds have also been exempted from the lockdown so are intra and inter-state movement of harvesting and sowing related machines like combined harvester and other agriculture and horticulture implements.

After Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement of the 21- days lockdown, the home ministry on Tuesday night issued the guidelines for the enforcement of the nationwide lockdown.

The guidelines listed several services including government and private offices that will be out of bounds during the period, while exempting establishments such as hospitals, ration shops, dairies, banks, insurance offices, print and electronic media.

Delivery of all essential goods including food, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment through e-commerce has also been exempted from the purview of the lockdown.

"All enforcing authorities to note that these strict restrictions fundamentally relate to movement of people, but not to that of essential goods," the guidelines said.

Another set of guidelines was issued on Wednesday giving exemption to several categories of people and services from the purview of the lockdown.

This is the third set of guidelines issued in last four days.

A series of Standard Operating Procedures was also issued on Thursday wherein the central government has made it clear that essential goods amd services should be made available to the people asked state governments to ensure their smooth functioning.