BELAGAVI
The problem started last Sunday when the vehicles supplying vegetable to Horticulture Corporation were denied entry into the market yard. However, the issue was temporarily resolved following intervention by senior authorities.According to BM Srinivas, who has recently assumed charge as the APMC secretary, these suppliers have to pay a daily user fee of 1 per cent of the quantum of supply to Goa.“We are calculating the amount overdue for all these years. I am only implementing the regulations set by the state government. In case if they fail to pay the user fee, we will have to go to court and recover the user fee from the suppliers,” Srinivas told The Goan.Agitated with the unexpected development, the suppliers have termed the demand of user fee by APMC as unjust and incorrect.“The APMC secretary is demanding this fee only from the eight suppliers to Goa, which is unwarranted. The shed is ours and we only package the vegetables here. Why were the authorities silent all these years? There are about 600 procuring and trading units here,” Ganesh Oulkar, one of the Goan suppliers, told The Goan. “Like them, we too are only using the roads in the APMC-owned market yard. Then why impose this fee only on us and why not from others too,” he asked.When asked if the aggrieved suppliers would challenge the decision, Oulkar said: “We have many options open. We Goa suppliers may shift our base or we may go to court against the unjust demand,” he said. Meanwhile, the elected APMC representatives too have termed the levying of fees as unjust. Manohar Mungari, who represents the dealers in the elected body of the APMC, said: “Imposing of such fees only from the suppliers to Goa may be unfair. A meeting has been convened later this week to discuss the issue.”
