New Delhi: Manoj Ahuja, Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare has stated that till 31st August 2023, 1361 APMCs (Agricultural Produce & Livestock Market Committees) were integrated on e-NAM, encompassing 23 States and 4 UTs , where in 209 commodities are being traded altogether, with a farsighted vision, to provide multifaceted benefits to farmers, Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) and buyers/traders transacting via e-NAM.
To further strengthen e-NAM, 28 new mandis are approved recently for integration to take the total count of mandis to 1389. Secretary Agriculture highlighted the importance of providing key information to the stakeholders of e-NAM at the right time and in making any development, it is important to remove information asymmetry. He mentioned that information pertaining to quality of produce is as vital to the buyer, as the prices of commodity are vital to sellers.
Ahuja said that from an economic perspective, the whole value chain must be made efficient and wastage must be reduced. Agriculture Secretary appreciated the efforts behind conducting the workshop and whole-heartedly appreciated the State Agriculture marketing Boards from Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu for their presentations and for utilising the platform provided by the workshop for benefit of all stakeholders of e-NAM.”
Faiz Ahmed Kidwai, Additional Secretary, Marketing Division, M/o Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, while addressing the audience, mentioned that e-NAM 2.0 will be an advance version of existing e-NAM, wherein the reforms in the State Acts will be very important in the success of e-NAM 2.0.
Presentations were also made by 3 FPOs – Churchu Nari Urja FPCL (Jharkhand), Maangani City Consortium (Tamil Nadu) & Jaivik Shri FPCL, Koraput (Odisha), where they shared their experience on using e-NAM platform. These FPOs are continuously using e-NAM with a trade of Rs 1.25 Cr, Rs 1.44 Cr and Rs 2.68 Cr respectively.
Various senior officials from private organizations, banks, commodity exchanges, State Agriculture Marketing Boards and Department of Marketing and Inspection were also present during presentation and discussion-session in this National workshop on e-NAM 2.0 and Agricultural Reforms held here today.
National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) is a pan-India electronic trading portal, launched on 14th April 2016, by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, networks the existing APMC mandis. The trading portal leveraging available infrastructure with existing APMCs to create a Unified National Market for agricultural commodities. The portal is managed by “Small Farmers’ Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC)”, under the aegis of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Government of India.
e-NAM has been able to bring competence in APMC mandi operations via technology interventions: accuracy in weighment via digital weighbridge and weighing scale; accuracy in assaying via advance assaying equipment; real-time online information on commodity prices, access to more buyers/sellers and transparency in trade (due to on-line mode of auction) resulting in competitive bidding and there by better price discovery; transparency in payment via multiple online payment modes and better efficiency in overall mandi operations via digitalization.
