Bangalore, Nov 17: Former prime minister H D Deve Gowda today opposed Karnataka government's reported move to amend the Agricultural Produces Marketing Committee Act to enable German trading and retail company metro cash and carry to do wholsesale business of agricultural commodities, saying it would be a "crushing blow" to farmers and traders. He told reporters here under no circumstances should the APMC Act be amended to allow metro to do business in 124 commodities listed under the act and warned he would be forced to take up protest programmes if the government took any step detrimental to interests of farmers.
The move would also affect small traders and labourers in the APMC market and ultimately throw lakhs of families depending on them to the streets, he said.
Gowda said the licence granted to metro itself raised doubts as it was given even a day before it applied for it.
He said he failed to understand the "enthusiasm" of the state government in giving the licence.
Union Ministry of Commerce and Industries had also repeatedly made it clear that government's policy on retail trading since 1997 was not to permit foreign direct investment in this sector, he said.
"Metro may be an advantage to the affluent sections of society but it will destroy the farmers," he said, adding he has written to Chief Minister S M Krishna on the issue.
The Metro Group has invested Rs 176 crore in two stores in the city to do wholesale business, but traders are up in arms against it accusing it of making a backdoor entry into the prohibited retail trade, which the firm has flatly denied.
Bureau Report