Food Minister Launches Negotiable Warehouse Receipt System

NCT: Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Prof. K.V.Thomas launched the Negotiable Warehouse Receipt System (NWRs) here today. Henceforth, farmers can seek the loan from banks against the warehouse receipts issued to them against their storage. These receipts issued by the warehouses registered with the Warehousing Development and Regulatory Authority (WDRA) would become a fully negotiable instrument backed by a Central legislation. The WDRA was setup by the Government in October 2010 to regulate and development of warehouses in the country.

Launching the system, Prof. Thomas said that the new initiative would help the farmers to avoid distress sale and become a tool of trade and facilitate finance to the farmers. It would also allow banks to improve the quality of their lending services in agriculture sector, increase the liquidity in the rural areas and encourage better price risk management in agriculture commodities.

Underlining importance of modernization of warehouses, Prof. Thomas said that it is imperative that world class warehousing facilities for all commodities, including agriculture commodities are created in the country on priority basis. He said warehouses should be equipped with the latest devices for handling, grading, storage and transportation of different commodities.

Directing to the Central Warehousing Authority to undertake extensive training programme for scientific storage of goods, he said storage and transit losses should be minimized. He said the authority should arrange training of warehousemen and other stakeholders of the sector through expert institutions besides undertaking awareness programmes for farmers. He said efforts should also be made for scientific storage and marketing of onions and potatoes. Linkages of registered warehouses should also be provided with Agriculture Produce & Marketing Committee (APMC) and Spot Exchanges so as to enable the farmers to fetch better prices of their agriculture produce, he said.

Expressing concern over existing rate of interest in agriculture lending, Shri Thomas said he had taken up the issue with the Finance Ministry to get crop loan facilities at concessional rate of four percent so that availability of easy finance can be ensured for the food grain producers. 

Courtesy : PIB