Himachal Pradesh Beopar Mandal assails market fee on 128 more items

Ravinder Sood

Palampur, January 5

The Himachal Pradesh Beopar Mandal today assailed the state government for its recent notification for adding 128 new additional consumer items to the existing list of 132 items for paying market committee fee. Beopar Mandal said it was an anti-trader step and it the notification issued should be immediately withdraw.

Sumesh Sharma, president of the mandal, said that the traders who were paying market fee on 132 items would now pay the same on 259 consumer items, including raw material and finished consumable items, which would ultimately lead to price rise and corruption, apart from harassment to the trading community.

He said there was already slump in the market and traders who have borne the brunt of the pandemic were also experiencing a drastic fall in their annual turnover due to the rising trend of online shopping, trade fairs and opening of shopping malls across the state but now they shall face the heat of the revised market committee fee structure.

He said the government had sought objections on the revised market fee items listed from Beopar Mandal but the traders associations of the state had rejected the notification of the government and sought its immediate revocation in the larger interest of consumers and traders.

Sharma said at present the traders were paying one to five per cent market fee on the Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee Board (APMCB) barriers in the state. He alleged that the state government has illegally declared the whole state as a market yard and the APMCB has opened its barriers on the inter-state borders in the state which have virtually become “dens of corruption”. He said the Beopar Mandal would also study the legal options to challenge this notification in the court of law.

Will lead to price rise, corruption

The traders who were paying market fee on 132 items would now pay it on 259 consumer items, including raw material and finished consumable items, which would ultimately lead to price rise and corruption, apart from harassment to the trading community, said Sumesh Sharma, president of Beopar Mandal