Jammu, Dec 2 (IANS): The Administrative Council (AC) of Jammu and Kashmir which met under the chairmanship of the Lt. Governor Manoj Sinha has approved regulations for the functioning of agriculture markets across the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir, officials said on Friday.

The Jammu and Kashmir Agriculture Produce & Market Committee (APMC) Act, 1997 ceased to exist after the operation of J&K State Reorganization Act - 2019.

The Board will manage and regulate the established Mandis in J&K and remove the operational difficulties faced due to non-existing of statutory mechanism as on date.

In terms of the new mechanism, Director Horticulture Planning and Marketing, J&K to declare any CA Store, Cold Store, Ware House with above 3 ton capacity and cooperatives/FPOs/SHGs, Store centers as sub-yards of Mandis for purpose of doing trade on e-Nam platforms and for making e-payments on the e-Nam Portal.

Director, Horticulture (Planning and Marketing), J&K will be the sole authority to issue unified licenses for carrying out trade in any Mandi in J&K.

It has a provision to allow outside J&K traders to do trade on the e-Nam with the growers and traders of J&K.

For this purpose, the Director, Horticulture (Planning and Marketing), is allowed to recognise the licenses issued by the outside APMCs as valid licenses for doing trade on e-Nam portal on mutual understanding basis with other states/UTs.