Left Front-constituent Forward Bloc (FB), which runs the West Bengal State Agriculture Marketing Board, and CPM leaders today decided to renew Metro Cash & Carry’s APMC licence after the company threatened to leave the state after Tata Motors’ Nano.
The German wholesale retailer’s APMC licence was renewed after the company agreed to bill every customer a minimum of Rs 1,000 and only to traders with regulated market committee (RMC) licence. The company will open its first outlet in Kolkata in six to eight weeks. APMC licence is a must for any firm to procure fruits and vegetables directly from farmers.
The State Agriculture Marketing Board granted Metro Cash & Carry the licence to trade in APMC commodities in 2005, which was subsequently renewed twice in 2006 and 2007 and was valid until March 2008.
However, in June 2007 the licence was unilaterally withdrawn by the APMC authorities over a dispute between the former land owners and the state government over the land on which Metro was supposed to come up, a dispute that had nothing to do with the company.
Construction was stayed for eight months. After the stay-order was revoked, the company had approached the licensing authority repeatedly for issuance of fresh APMC licence in November 2007, December 2007, and finally in March 2008.
According to a release issued by Metro after receiving its APMC licence, “We are keen to start our operations to demonstrate the benefits of our business-to-business concept to our professional business customers in Kolkata. We have about 350 trained local employees to serve our registered professional business customers. We should have the outlet fully up and running in six and eight weeks.”