CHILLIES EXPORTERS ASSOCIATION INDIA

F.No. 102, 1st Floor, Suguna Arcade, Devapura, Opp. Krishna nagar, Guntur – 522006

President General Secretary

Velagapudi Sambasiva Rao Thota Ramakrishna
Mob: +91-9849418585 Mob: +91-9652222244

Representation to The Secretary, APMC Mirch Yard, Guntur

Sub: Hardship faced by exporters / buyers due to present weighmen system

Ref: RC No. 50/2022 dt. 22-09-2022

We would like to bring the following to your kind notice regarding the issues faced by the
exporters and buyers in the APMC Mirch Yard, Guntur.

1. The weighmen system was envisaged to protect the farmers from weighment fraud and
cheating by the commission agents, traders, exporters etc. in the mirch yard. There are about
One Hundred Weighmen Personnel working in the mirch yard. They were appointed twenty
years ago when there was only 100-150 shops in the mirch yard and only about twenty five
cold storages. Now there are about 600-650 shops in the mirch yard apart from about sixty
cold storges who has license from the Guntur Mirch Yard. Also the average number of bags
sold in our Yard has increased ten fold in the last twenty years.
2. The number of weighmen is inadequate for the volume of sales done through our Guntur
Mirch Yard. Due to the serious shortage of Weighmen staff in the mirch yard the weighment
of chillies is mostly done by the staff of commission agents and buyers staff. The weighmen
persons are not even coming to the shops to record the weighments. As the weighmen are
not actually weighing the material, the original purpose of the weighmen system was getting
defeated on a regular basis. The weighmen are demanding money from the traders and
exporters without actually doing any work. Traders and exporters are paying money to the
weighmen without getting any service from them. The weighmen are demanding money just
by writing weighmen slips without doing any work.
3. In the present scenario, there is no need of weighmen as all are mandatorily using electronic
weighment scales to weigh all the material and there is no chance of farmers getting cheated.

In view of the above discussion, its our opinion that there is no need of weighmen in the
mirch yard. The weighmen system must be abolishes. If the weighmen system must
continue, their numbers must be increased to atleast 200-300 weighmen to cater to the needs
of all stakeholders.
Hence we request you to abolish the weighmen system or increase the number of weighmen
staff in mirch yard substantially.

4. Another important problem faced by the exporters is that the mirch yard staff at the gates are
allowing the material to leave the mirch yard only if the weighmen slip is submitted. The
gate pass must be issued by the commission agents or the mirch yard staff after verifying the
details. The weighmen slips are not used as gatepass in any market committee yard in the
state of Andhra Pradesh or any where else in India. Because of the weighmen slips, the
material is getting dealyed and resulting in traffic jams in the mirch yard. The farmers are
not bringing the material when the yard is totally clogged due to material not leaving the
yard in time. Even though there are many gates for the mirch yard, only 2 gates are in
operation now. It is causing traffic jams and clogging of the systems. This is causing severe
CHILLIES EXPORTERS ASSOCIATION INDIA
F.No. 102, 1st Floor, Suguna Arcade, Devapura, Opp. Krishna nagar, Guntur – 522006

President General Secretary

Velagapudi Sambasiva Rao Thota Ramakrishna
Mob: +91-9849418585 Mob: +91-9652222244

inconvenience to the farmers and traders alike. So we request you to kindly open all the
gates for inward and outward of goods by keeping enough security staff at the gates.

In view of this we request you to allow the goods out of the mirch yard with commission
agent gatepass or some other proper legal document. We also request you to kindly open all
the gates and appoint suitable staff at the gates.
We are very hopeful that you will take the correct decision in increasing the number of
weighmen staff and also allowing the goods out of the yard using commission agent
gatepass.

We highly appreciate your co-operation in this regard,

Thanking you in anticipation

Yours truly

For Chillies Exporters Association India.

Sambasiva Rao Velagapudi Thota Ramakrishna

President General Secretary.