Agricultural Produce Market Committee is the apmc full form. So why are there so many agricultural markets in India? The answer lies with the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Act.
This legislation was passed by Indian state governments and regulates 2477 principal regulated market locations across all 29 regions of our country that produce foodstuffs like cereals, pulses/legumes vegetables oils seeds fruits & chickens among other things; it also provides first sale rights for these commodities produced locally as well as any imports marketed through those respective areas too.
These markets (like the one pictured below that was part of this research project, located in Kotturpuram) are typically owned and operated by state government agencies; APMC’s regulate the buying, selling and licensing of commodities via these markets. The primary goal is to make sure farmers get fair prices for their production & can sell at any market under the system.
This particular market extracts almost 24 million rupees in revenue per annum for this state government agency, largely due to its volume of transactions (roughly $3.6 million every year — making it one of the highest volume markets in Chennai). It is set up like a traditional retail store, with familiar produce placement & well-defined categories; however, much of the produce is not fresh (i.e. ‘day old’ or otherwise) & is instead stored in large warehouses within this market’s compound before being shipped to various retail locations around the city — so typically there is not much decomposition visible when you are shopping at these markets.
Even though these markets are quite large and bring in substantial revenue for the state, they can be very inefficient. Produce is typically brought to these locations by farmers located many kilometers away (so it’s not fresh because of long transport times), there is no visible pricing mechanism so you have to ask the vendors what every item costs, and because of their sheer size the markets are difficult to manage & take up a ton of physical space, especially in urban settings.