How Maharashtra APMC amendment could push traders away from markets

The amendment has also done away with the process of the requirement of separate licenses considering the entire state as a single market

Maharashtra government's decision to amend the APMC Act making it illegal for a private trader to purchase any agriculture produce below the government-fixed MSP from the coming kharif harvest season hasn't found support from several quarters.

NITI Aayog member (agriculture) Ramesh Chand said that prices cannot be enforced if demand-side factors are not supportive of a particular price, unless, off course, traders are paid some incentive for doing so. 

He said if MSP was possible to be implemented for all commodities by making it legal, governments would have done it long back.

The amendment said that any trader who fails