Centre to amend Warehousing Act
- July 28, 2022
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
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Centre to amend Warehousing Act
Subject: Economy
Section: Agriculture
Context:
- The Union Food and Public Distribution Ministry has suggested major amendments to the Warehousing (Development and Regulation) Act of 2007.
- the amendment was to make registration of godowns compulsory and to raise the penalty for various offences and to do away with the jail term as a punishment for the offences.
- Captive warehouses such as those of the Food Corporation of India are excluded from the ambit of the Act.
- The Act wants to establish a system of negotiable and non-negotiable warehouse receipt (NWR) which is now in electronic form.
- If amended, the Act will help in doing away with accreditation agencies.
- The application for registration of warehouses will be submitted directly to the WDRA and a new system of online application, which will be contactless and faceless will be implemented and the average registration time will be reduced.
- That apart, the government has proposed doing away with up to three years imprisonment for various offences but suggested significant increase in penalty from the current Rs 1 lakh for various offences
Negotiable Warehouse Receipt System
- It was launched in 2011 but the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution.
- Farmers can seek loans from banks against the warehouse receipts issued to them against their storage.
- These receipts issued by the warehouses registered with the WDRA would become a fully negotiable instrument backed by a Central legislation.
- The Electronic Negotiable Warehouse Receipt (e-NWR) System was launched in 2017.
Warehousing Development and Regulatory Authority
- It is a Statutory Authority under the Department of Food and Public Distribution, Government of India.
- It was constituted in 2010 under the Warehousing (Development and Regulation) Act, 2007.
- It regulates and ensures implementation of this 2007 Act for the development and regulation of warehouses.
- It implements and regulates the Negotiable Warehouse Receipt (NWR) /electronic-NWR (e-NWR) System in the country.
- It also promotes orderly growth of the warehousing business.
- It consists of a Chairperson and two Members appointed by the Central Government.
- It has also setup two Repositories, namely, M/s National Electronic Repository Limited (NERL) and CDSL Commodity Repository Limited (CCRL) for creation and management of electronic Negotiable Warehouse Receipts (e-NWRs).
- All registered warehouses are mandated to issue only e-NWRs w.e.f 1stAugust 2019.
- The Recognized Stock Exchanges like National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX), Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX), Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), National Multi Commodity Exchange (NMCE/ICEX) are using e-NWRs for settlement of derivative contracts.
- The e-NWR has been integrated with electronic National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) platform by providing interface between e-NAM and repositories.