Negotiable Warehouse Receipts:

• Warehouse Receipts are documents issued by warehouses to depositors against the commodities deposited in the warehouses, for which the warehouse is the bailee.
• Warehousing (Development and Regulation) Act, 2007 (WDR Act) defines a “negotiable warehouse receipt” to mean a warehouse receipt under which the goods represented therein are deliverable to the depositor or order, the endorsement of which has the effect of the transfer of goods represented thereby and the endorsee for which takes a good title;”
• NWRs can be traded, sold, swapped and used as collateral to support borrowing. 
• Benefits of NWRs: o NWRs issued by registered warehouses help farmers to seek loans from banks against NWRs and this way NWRs become a prime tool of trade.
  • NWRs provide farmers with an instrument that allows them to extend the sales period of modestly perishable products well beyond the harvesting season.
  • When delivering the product to an accredited warehouse, the farmer obtains a Warehouse Receipt that can be used as collateral for short-term borrowing to obtain working capital. That way, the farmer does not need to sell the product immediately to ease cash constraints.
• Warehousing Development and Regulatory Authority (WDRA) has notified 123 agricultural commodities including cereals, pulses, oil seeds, spices, rubber, tobacco, coffee etc for issuing negotiable warehouse receipts and also 26 horticultural commodities for cold storage