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The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill 2020 Essential Commodities Act was first brought in decades back in 1955. The Act basically controls the production, supply and the distribution of certain commodities that are known to be essential. So if an item comes under this Act for instance a food item or an important drug then companies and supermarkets cannot hoard these items when there is a shortage, they also cannot artificially increase the prices etc. the list of essential commodities as per the original act includes: Drugs (medicines); Fertilizers (inorganic, organic, mixed); Foodstuff (including edible oilseeds and oils); hank yarn made wholly from cotton; Petroleum and petroleum products; Raw jute and jute textiles; Seeds (food crops, fruits and vegetables, cattle fodder and jute seeds). The new amendment has removed food stuff such as Potato, Cereals, Pulses, edible oilseeds and oils, from the list of essential commodities which means unless there is a dire circumstances like a war or famine or an extraordinary price rise these commodities will not be considered under the essential commodities list. Further, the government cannot impose a stock limit i.e. it cannot stop a supermarket chain or a retailer from hoarding unless there is a 100% (percent) increase in price of perishable goods or 50% (percent) increase in price of non-perishable goods. All items removed from essential commodities act are: Rice, Wheat, Potatoes, Onions, and Oil. Everything looks great on paper, but then where does the problem lie? Well there is a difference between good legislation and good implementation of the Act, many critics have raised their concerns regarding this Act. The very first concern is that an Act which is going to be implemented in the whole country has neither been discussed with states which will be most affected by the Act nor with the experts in this field accusing the government of destroying cooperative federalism. We are witnessing a country wide protest, which is more intense in Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh. The reason is obvious as this region has the most organized form of APMCs. Although there is no provision of removing of APMCs then why are farmers fearing and raising slogans of MANDI BACHAO? APMCs are under state government and are maintained by taxes collected in APMC market’s transaction. Government says in private markets, which can be set up now, no taxes will be charged in the transactions of private market so this would save taxes, all companies and traders will buy farm produce from private markets which will slowly result in the end of APMC because the state government will have no funds to maintain APMC. If this happens states will have a lot of revenue loss and union government has not mentioned any way to compensate them, especially in Punjab and Haryana. Middlemen will become jobless and there is a concern that there is a possibility of middleman in private sector also because our farmers are not in a position to bargain with corporate houses. In private sector there will be no control and exploitation by middlemen may multiply. (86% farmers of our country are marginalized farmers i.e. they have less than 2 acres of land.) With the end of APMCs, MSP will also practically end this is the most important concern. We are talking about ‘One nation One market’, ‘freedom of choice of market’ any farmer can sell his farm produce anywhere, looks good on seeing but the ground reality is this already exists and a farmer can sell his produce any where he wishes in any part of country, it does not happen because our farmers do not have medium and money to transport goods from one place to another because government itself says 86% of farmers are marginalized. Contract farming is looked upon as privatization of farming, two major concerns here are that farmers will never be able to negotiate with the corporate sector. Act does not prescribe or specify that contract price of the crop should be at least equivalent or above the MSP. It means the contractor/companies can pay whatever price they want to the farmer. Being big private companies, exporters, wholesalers, and processors, they will always have an edge in disputes. Written contract is not mandatory which means farmer will never be able to prove violation of terms of contract. Farmers have a valid point because they have seen privatization in markets of seeds and fertilizers where government believed prices will go down because of competition but results are opposite, and farmers fear the same in this case also. Limits of hoarding have been removed because the situation of ‘Extraordinary price rise’ is way to high to reach which simply means big private players can any time cause artificial price fluctuation. Not only farmers will be affected by it, consumers will also be affected because the main goal or focus of a private company will be to raise its profits. WAY FORWARD Yes, there were many flaws in the decades old APMC Act, but critics believe that the need was to plug the loopholes instead of introducing a new system altogether. A similar system has already been introduced in America and some European countries where it has failed miserably, we can only hope this does not happen in India and government will not repeat those mistakes. From the attitude of government, the stand of government is very clear that it is not going to change anything because already it has been termed as Masterstroke. Right now, it is just an Act both are results are possible; farmers income becomes double as said by the government, or their conditions worsen as feared by farmers. History is the best judge. While the intent of Government is laudable, we will be able to see the results of these new Acts after few years only. Right now, everything is just a speculation.