OPS calls market cess on agri products 'anti-trade'

CHENNAI: AIADMK coordinator and former chief minister O Panneerselvam on Sunday charged the DMK government for imposing an additional market cess on agricultural products.

The AIADMK leader said by introducing a market cess, the traders would be forced to pay an extra 1% as tax on their agricultural products.

Stating that the Agriculture Department has created a platform to sell agriculture products at the regulated markets across the State, Panneerselvam pointed out that at present, paddy, tamarind, corn, and cotton were sold and were auctioned at these markets.

Panneerselvam claimed that though the cotton was removed from the market cess list last year, now it was included in that. Stating that in addition to the cotton, the DMK government has included several agriculture products in the market cess list, the deputy opposition leader of the House said "accordingly, the farmers would the first ones to get affected by imposing the tax".

"Not only traders will be affected but people will also face problems as the prices of the agriculture products will increase in the market", he said.

"The market cess was not imposed for the agriculture products from other states, which was sold here", he said adding "this cannot be accepted as the income of both farmers and traders here will be decreased".

Alleging that the move to impose the market cess for agricultural products was totally anti-trade policy, the AIADMK leader said "therefore, the chief minister should immediately intervene in this issue and withdraw the market cess that was imposed besides regulating the trade".

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