The Administrative Council (AC) which met here under the chairmanship of the Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha, approved ‘Regulations for the functioning of Agriculture Markets across the UT of Jammu and Kashmir’.

Rajeev Rai Bhatnagar, Advisor to the Lieutenant Governor, Dr. Arun Kumar Mehta, Chief Secretary, J&K attended the meeting.

The Jammu and Kashmir Agriculture Produce & Market Committee (APMC) Act, 1997 ceased to exist after the operation of J&K State Reorganization Act- 2019.

This Board will manage and regulate the established Mandies in J&K and will remove the operational difficulties faced due to non-existing of statutory mechanism as on date. The Board will be headed by the ACS, APD and will have representatives of Mandies and Food Associations as Members as also other official members.

In terms of the new mechanism, Director Horticulture Planning and Marketing, J&K to declare any CA Store, Cold Store, Ware House with above 3 ton capacity and cooperatives/FPOs/SHGs, Store centers as sub-yards of Mandies for purpose of doing trade on e-Nam platforms and for making e-payments on the e-Nam Portal.

Director, Horticulture (Planning and Marketing), J&K will be the sole Authority to issue unified licenses for carrying out trade in any Mandi in the UT of J&K. It has a provision to allow outside J&K traders to do trade on the e-Nam with the growers and traders of J&K. For this purpose, the Director, Horticulture (Planning and Marketing), is allowed to recognize the licenses issued by the outside APMCs as valid licenses for doing trade on e-Nam portal on mutual understanding basis with other States/UTs.