20 firms seek licences to buy food directly

At least 20 business groups, including Reliance Retail, have applied for permission from the government to approach farmers for direct procurement of fruits and vegetables in West Bengal.

Chennai-based retail chain Subhiksha and Kolkata-based Spencers were the prominent ones in the queue, said a senior government official of the state horticulture and food processing department.

He indicated that ITC and Metro were expected to join the queue.

As many as three government departments "" land reform, agriculture, and horticulture and food processing departments "" were involved in giving clearances to corporates keen on this business.

While the agriculture department, headed by Left Front minister Naren De, had refused to give the APMC clearance to the retailers, the other two departments were examining the viability of the proposed backward integration by the retail companies.

Recently, the land reforms department had redirected the applications seeking land for post harvest infrastructure to the horticulture and food processing department for a feasibility study.

The technical committee in the department had asked Reliance Fresh for furnishing more details before giving nod to the proposals, said the horticulture and food processing department official.

"We are basically facilitating the project by examining their technical feasibility. The retailers want land for backward integration. The committee, which includes experts like scientists, will examine if at all the proposed food processing unit or a cold chain is viable in the area," he said.

The APMC act was a crucial cog in the wheel because unless the Act was amended the corporates were not legally allowed to proceed with direct procurement of farm products.

Reliance's application for trading licences in 15 APMC markets had been pending decision for a while now.

De had recently announced, "Our stand in giving APMC licence to corporates like Reliance remains the same. We will not allow large companies to corner Rs 10 crore profit against 100,000 jobs in the state."

At the same time, APMC may not bar retailers from going in for direct purchases.

As the government official admitted, APMC was no bar for corporates as there existed a lot of ambiguity regarding its interpretation.

"It can be interpreted in a number of ways," he confessed.