Haryana to set up terminal market

To prevent fruit and vegetables getting mouldered, something that normally occurs during transportation, the Haryana government has identified Rai in Sonepat district to set up a terminal market.

The terminal will be constructed by the Haryana Agriculture Marketing Board and spread over 200 acres, funded through the National Horticulture Mission and banks.

The project includes infrastructure, including collection centres, a grading and packing hall, display areas, a viewing gallery, auction hall, etc. including banking, processing, exports and other services.

"For the proposed project, land at two locations has been identified, and it belongs to the panchayat," a source in the government said.

He said: "The proposed market will have amenities like auction houses, banking, and cold storage, along with export facilities. The terminal market will be a high-tech one and have organised wholesale markets for fruits, vegetables, flower, fish, and dairy products. Besides, it will have facilities like grading, packaging and transportation."

Among other salient features, the source said the claims of the farmers would be settled within 24 hours for their produce. He also added that for the benefit of the farmer community the board would organise awareness and training programmes.

Besides serving Haryana, the upcoming terminal market will cover Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. As Haryana has not amended the Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee Act (APMC), it can't invite private players for setting up the terminal market. So the state is undertaking this project itself with the help of the National Horticulture Mission.

Besides Haryana, Punjab also intends to set up terminal markets on public-private partnership because it has amended the APMC Act.

The Punjab government has proposed to set up four state-of-the-art terminal market complexes for fruit, vegetables and flowers in Hoshiarpur, Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Muktsar. Even Chandigarh has plans to set up a terminal market on the PPP model.

The terminal market is usually a central site or a hub that serves as an assembly and trading place for agricultural commodities. The markets are linked to a number of collection centres and provide state-of-the-art facilities for grading, transportation, storage, domestic marketing and exports.