Middleman Regulation: Fill & Download for Free

Most of the protest is led by Political Parties and Unions for their own cause and to confuse the farmers.Earlier the farmers had to sell their crops at APMC (Regulated Mandis), but now they have a parallel system where they can sell their crops outside mandis as well.Drawbacks of APMCs:A wide varieties of taxes used to be imposed on farmers, if they sell their crops and vegetables in Mandis.The most common example is Arthiyas (middleman). They used to help farmers in loading, unloading, cleaning and setting up the Mandi, in return got 2.5% commission. An estimation tells more than 2,000 crore rupees were given to such middleman out of farmers' pocket.State Government also imposes tax on such farmers. Punjab government earns more than 3,500 crore rupees from such taxes.Unions also have a stronghold on such Mandi system and earn a good amount of money from the farmers' pocket.The Government is giving farmers a chance to sell their crops outside APMCs as well. Those who wish to sell in APMC can continue to do so, while those who wish to sell in other states or other traders can do so.If the farmers chose the parallel system, extra costs that incur to them, like taxes, won't be no longer bothering them. Obviously if the farmers chose the parallel system, it will be a blow to the earnings of middleman and unions.Fun Fact: Congress promised similar reforms in their 2019 Election manifesto. Since BJP is fulfilling the promise, they are protesting.Anugrhitoasmi 💛

The Sad Facts of the matter is:-(a) Farmers gain less than 10% from the Price Gain. Middlemen simply reduce their orders ensuring that despite a higher per kilo price - the reduced order ensures that the total money earned remains the same.(b) Middlemen gain by around 20–30% - usually by manipulating demand and supply(c) Wholesalers make a killing of around 70% - 100% profits by mass storage and price fixing. After all - the Middleman - Wholesaler combo is responsible for regulating the entire demand and supply and sensing shortage decide to play havoc for a short peiod of time.(d) Retailers rarely gain more than 10% - as they end up with mildly larger margins (When Onion is Rs 48/-, Retailers usually pay Rs. 32/-, when it is 150/-, they pay around Rs. 130/-) - so difference is barely noticeableSo the Biggest Culprits are the Middlemen and the Wholesellers

Millions of Texans are not facing those kinds of bills. First off all, the vast majority of Texans choose fixed rate electrical plans, which means that no matter what the provider has to pay for electricity, you're paying only the agreed rate. Several electrical providers went bust last week for this very reason. Second, most people who are on variable rate plans have plans that rerate every month or so, not on the fly, so they wouldn't have been caught in this situation. Third, save for one big exception (see below), variable providers purchase their expected electricity in advance at what they deem a fair price and use the spot market to fill out any gaps, so most plans were a mix of normally-priced electricity and the high spot price, not purely the latter.The people with enormous bills seem to be in two camps: either those bills are in error (and will be corrected) or they were customers of a provider called Griddy that had fewer than 30,000 members. Griddy offered users a plan that was unique in the state: you pay $10/mo, and you're allowed to purchase your electricity from the wholesale market in real time, same as any electric company. This arrangement promised big savings since Texas's electricity market generally has a lot of excess capacity keeping prices down and typical bills are often 50% markup to the middleman. But last week, because of severe shortages and high demand, power hovered around its statutory maximum of $9/kWh for several days, and people who stuck with Griddy and didn't curtail their use got burned.I suspect that (1) users will get some kind of partial bailout and/or (2) Griddy will be seriously regulated moving forward.