KATHMANDU, Aug 21: Traders at Kalimati fruits and vegetables market have obstructed market monitoring conducted by the Department of Commerce, Supply and Protection of Consumers, on Monday.
A monitoring team led by Dipak Pokharel, section officer at the department, had reached the Kalimati market at 3 am on Monday. The traders interfered with the work of the monitoring team.
Yogendra Gauchan, director general of the department, told Republica that the traders protested when the team started checking their bills and receipts.
"During the inspection, our team found that the traders did not have bills. So we tried to take their stuff under control," he said, adding: "But they resisted and protested."
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A week ago, the department had deployed monitoring teams to Makawanpur and Dhading districts. They had found that intermediaries between traders and farmers were playing a huge role in increasing vegetable prices in the market.
According to Gauchan, the intermediaries bought vegetables at very cheap rates from the farmers and sold to the traders at high rates. The traders then added their profits, making vegetables dearer to the consumers.
To verify this fact, the department had deployed the monitoring team to the Kalimati market.
After the traders' protest, the monitoring team sought help from police and seized two vehicles of vegetables. The police also arrested Bharat Prashad Khatiwada, general secretary of Federation of Fruit & Vegetable Entrepreneurs Nepal.
However, the traders have denied that they interfered with the work of the monitoring team.
"We have not interfered with their work. In fact, we have always been supporting them," said Khom Prashad Ghimire, president of the federation. According to him, the two seized vehicles were carrying cucumber and pumpkin from Pharping and Chitwan.
"The vegetables were brought directly by the farmers, and they did not have bills. We tried to explain it to the monitoring team. But without listening to us, they seized the vehicles and took the federation's general secretary under control," he claimed.
Issuing a press release on Monday, the federation has demanded immediate release of Khatiwada. It has threatened to close all the vegetable and fruits markets from Tuesday until the police release Khatiwada from the custody.
Earlier, the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, in association with Kalimati Fruits and Vegetable Market Development Board, had inspected the market in an effort to take action against the traders' cartel. But even then, the traders had protested and had filed a case against the board.
The trading of fruits and vegetables was largely out of the tax net until the end of Fiscal Year 2017/18. From FY2018/19 onwards, the government has levied five percent advance income tax on the total transaction of vegetables.
