Gujarat’s dream of housing private wholesale market, or private mandies, is far from being realised. In fact, the companies that evinced interest in setting up private mandies in the state have not turned up for renewal of their licences, leaving their projects largely on paper.
Following the enactment of the Model Agriculture Act, the Gujarat government, in 2008, had issued licences to three companies. These included Delhi-based Premium Farm Fresh Ltd and Gujarat Agro Industries Corporation Ltd (GAIC).
The licences were for a period of two years. “So far, none of the players have approached us to renew their licences and no significant progress has been made on private wholesale markets in Gujarat,” confirmed officials of the Gujarat State Agriculture Marketing Board (GSAMB), the nodal agency appointed for facilitating the development of private mandies in the state.
However, the agency maintained that the interested players were taking more time as the concept was new and the project cost was as high as Rs 150-200 crore. “Recession may have also prompted them to stay away from the project for some time,” the officials added.
“Our company was issued licences for five to six wholesale markets in Gujarat. We did our survey, but we could not go ahead with our plans, as the company could not acquire land due to exorbitant prices in the state,” Premium Farm Fresh official said, adding, “The company is still keen to develop private wholesale markets in Gujarat.”
The Delhi-based company, which already operates one private wholesale market at Nasik in Maharashtra, encountered land acquisition problems in Karnataka, where it has four licences to set up private wholesale markets. “Land acquisition is not easy and we could not get contiguous land in Karnataka. Now, we hope to get land, as the state government has intervened,” the officials added.
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Also, when it comes to availing of government incentives, players are allowed to factor in only 10 per cent of the total project cost as the land cost, while it accounts for not less than 40 per cent of the total project cost. “This is a major disincentive,” said an industry player.
When contacted, sources in Gujarat Agro Industries Corporation (GAIC) revealed that its wholesale private market project was on papers and the company thought it to be unviable.
Expressing a concern over the development of private wholesale markets in the country, industry players say that the trend of private wholesale market is not picking up in India.