Vijayawada: The high price of onions in the market compelled the Vigilance & Enforcement (V&E) officers to conduct surprise inspections at random of 70 onion traders throughout the state.
Forty-seven of the 70 traders were guilty of illegal hoarding of onions or evasion of Agricultural Market Fee (AMF). Ten traders were illegally hoarding 603.50 quintals of oni-ons worth Rs 27,06,200 and they were seized and handed over to the concerned marketing department officials to take action.
Marketing officials filed cases against the 10 traders under Section 17 C of the AP Agricultural Produce & Live Stock Markets Act, 1966 for illegal hoarding of onions and for not having a valid licence.
The assessing authority is the Assistant Director, Marketing, who has the power to seize any notified agricultural produce or products taken or proposed to be taken out of the notified market area and to file a case against the erring tra-der before a Magistrate having jurisdiction an-d try the offences un-der this Act.
The Government of India has now imposed a limit on the stock a wholesaler can keep, which is 50 million tonnes (MT).
