Centre to add 50 more farm commodities to e-NAM

As the electronic National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) is about to complete six months, the Centre has decided to add 50 more farm commodities to the already existing 25,  which could be traded through this portal. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched e-NAM on April 14 this year. In its six-month journey, the number of mandis, which have joined the portal, has also reached over 236, as

against just 21 when the project was launched. Of this, officials said around 63 mandis have joined the e-NAM portal in Uttar Pradesh, followed by 41 in Telangana, 40 in Gujarat and 20 in Madhya Pradesh among others. The Centre claims till date around 90,073 metric tonnes of farm goods worth Rs 290 crore have been transacted through e-NAM. Almost 38,425 traders have registered themselves on e-NAM and over a lakh farmers have also joined the national market. More than 20,000 commission agents have also availed the services of e-NAM, the Centre claims.

Officials said the Centre plans to add over 500 mandis in e-NAM, by the end of 2018, of which 200 were to be joined by the end of September.

The target has already exceeded for this year, official s explained. The programme is being monitored at the highest level by senior officials. The e-NAM is one of the many initiatives through which the Centre plans to double farmers income by 2018. India has 2,477 principal mandis and 4,843 sub-markets created by the APMCs (Agricultural Produce Market Committees). With a corpus of Rs 200 crore to be spent over three years, the plan is to link nearly 585 major mandis in the first phase.

According to the guidelines, those mandis, which want to participate in the electronic platform and avail the Centre’s grant of over Rs 30 lakh, need to fulfill three criteria, which are: put in place e-auction platform for price discovery of agricultural produce, provide a single licence that is valid across the state and a single point levy of market fee.

A major objective of the common market is to iron out the price differentials that exist across the country by curbing the tendency to hoard, which in the final analysis could lead to a moderation of food inflation. The integration, as many experts and people working in the field believe, will usher in a new era in agriculture marketing in the country and could be a permanent solution against the dreaded APMC Act, the legislation through which state governments exercise their control over the wholesale markets.

The APMCs were first established to provide an organised marketplace to farmers and to ensure that they are not exploited at the hands of unscrupulous buyers. Ironically, in the last 15-20 years, the APMCs have played a role, which is just opposite to their stated objective.

Moreover, as the levies collected by APMCs do not go to the state exchequer and also any spending does not require legislature approval, their operations are more often than not hidden from scrutiny.

The management of most APMCs is in the hands of political parties who enjoy a cosy relationship with commission agents and arthiyas to form cartels to exercise monopoly.