Maha Vikas Aghadi partners- Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress are jointly contesting the election to the Mumbai Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) slated for February 29. Of the 25 posts, 18 are elected and the remaining 7 are nominated by the state government. In all 180 candidates are in the fray for 18 posts. Friday is the last day for withdrawal of nominations.
Mumbai APMC, which is situated at Vashi, New Mumbai, is India's richest APMC with an annual turnover of Rs 20,000 crore. It is currently under the administrators' rule since December 2, 2014.
Three parties have joined hands together to win the majority and thereby corner BJP in the Mumbai APMC. MVA has taken the election quite seriously as Mumbai APMC is engaged in the transactions in fruits, food grains, vegetables, onions and potatoes, sugar and spices. More than 2,000 trucks arrive daily in the market.
NCP leader, who is engaged with the poll exercise, told FPJ, “With the formation of MVA government in November last year, this is the first major poll in the cooperative and marketing sector being contested jointly by alliance partners. The BJP-led government after assuming power had placed the Mumbai APMC under the administrator's rule to checkmate the NCP-Congress dominance. The previous government, however, did not initiate the election process which is now being conducted by the MVA government.''
The BJP-led government had promised to provide international facilities in the Mumbai APMC though little has been done on this front. The elected board will put this job on fast track.
He informed that Maharashtra state has 306 APMCs with main markets and 598 submarkets, that streamline and regulate the marketing of agricultural and pisciculture commodities, from the same market area or any area thereof. A hierarchical and systematic board does the management of the produce through APMC. ''However, the constitution of Mumbai APMC and the election process is different from others,'' he noted.
