CIAO DATE: 02/2015
October 2014
Center for the Advanced Study of India
Mandis or physical, primary agricultural markets are old and ubiquitous institutions of economic life in many parts of India. Wherever they form, they are usually dense sites of economic, social and political activity, connecting and shaping the relations between town and countryside, and between local markets for commodities and larger, national and global circuits of capital and commerce. According to available estimates, there are over 7500 regulated agricultural markets in India today, operating under different state level acts covering a huge variety of notified agricultural produce.
Resource link: Understanding Mandis: Market Towns and the Dynamics of India's Rural and Urban Transformations [PDF] - 464K