Mandi Operations and Cooperative Institutions
What this domain tests
The working of a regulated agricultural produce market - its committee, yard procedure, charges - and the cooperative structure that supports procurement and credit, including Chhattisgarh practice.
Mandi operations
- The Krishi Upaj Mandi Samiti (market committee) is constituted under the state agricultural marketing law; the elected chairman is a political office and the secretary is the appointed administrative officer.
- Yard sequence: gate entry and arrival register → lot formation → open auction by licensed commission agents/traders → weighment (tulai) on verified kanta → grading → sale bill → gate pass for exit → payment.
- Charges on a sale bill: market fee (a percentage of value, fixed by state notification), hammali (loading/unloading), tulai (weighing), palledari (portage), and the commission agent's arhat. GST applies separately to taxable services - do not merge it with the market fee.
- Computerised mandis integrate with e-NAM; payments move to bank accounts, and licences of traders, commission agents and weighmen are issued by the committee.
- Disputes over weight, grade or payment go to the market committee's dispute mechanism, not directly to civil court.
Cooperative institutions
- Societies are registered under the state Cooperative Societies Act; the Registrar of Cooperative Societies supervises them.
- Three-tier credit: PACS at village level, District Central Cooperative Bank at district level, State Cooperative Bank as the apex; NABARD refinances.
- In Chhattisgarh, paddy procurement at support price is routed substantially through cooperative marketing and credit societies, which link the mandi system to cooperative banking.
Worked example (illustrative rates)
50 quintals of paddy at ₹2,000/quintal = ₹1,00,000 gross. Arhat 2% = ₹2,000; hammali ₹10/quintal = ₹500; tulai ₹2/quintal = ₹100. Net payable to the farmer = ₹1,00,000 − ₹2,600 = ₹97,400. Note that the market fee is a separate statutory deduction and its rate must come from the current state schedule, not from memory.
Traps that cost marks
Mixing market fee with GST, or assuming the commission agent is a government official. Confusing chairman with secretary. Using a remembered fee percentage that the state has since revised.