The Agriculture Market Yard in Anantapur has managed to surpass its annual target for the 2019-20 financial year despite several constraints.
A major constraint for the yard is that it does not collect any cess on vegetables and fruits, and buyers and sellers can strike a deal at a place of their choosing without any intervention by the State Government. However, the infrastructure at the sprawling yard attracts sweet lime growers and traders, and buyers of goats, sheep and cattle.
“With much difficulty, the market yard surpassed its target for the financial year that concluded on March 31,” Agriculture Market Yard chairman A.K.S. Fayaz told The Hindu. “While the State Government had given us a target of ₹3 crore revenue, we managed to achieve a revenue of ₹3.14 crore,” he said.
The yard is the largest cattle and sheep market in the State, attracting 7,000 flock of sheep and 2,500 herd of cattle every Saturday and Sunday. “The sales on these two days alone brings us ₹3.3 lakh per week,” said Mr. Fayaz. Till last year, the income was meagre at ₹70,000 per week, but now the AMC had been openly putting up the amount earned on the notice board. The enforcement of rules has been tightened and overloading of vehicles has been banned, which led to fiscal discipline and more income for the yard.
The recent lockdown has hit growers, farmers and cattle traders hard, he said, adding that he expects a revenue shortfall of ₹50 lakh in the current fiscal with more than two months lost due to the COVID-19 lockdown. “We have been collecting 1% user charge from the people making use of our premises for selling or buying agriculture produce, which fetched us ₹60,000 from sweet lime traders. We have some godowns of the traders, who pay us rents,” Mr. Fayaz said.
The Market Committee supplied masks and sanitisers to all the traders and farmers coming to the yard. Farmers coming here are given free food and clean water, he said.