e-NAM is Beyond Scheme but It’s A Journey to Reach The Last Mile Farmer

With the start of New Year 2019, the Prime Minister’s flagship program e-NAM has achieved another milestone by commencing inter-State trade between mandis of two different States. Earlier trade used to happen either within the APMC or between two APMCs situated within same state. The very first Inter State transaction in tomatoes has been carried out between trader of Bareilly e-NAM APMC of Uttar Pradesh and farmer of Haldwani e-NAM APMC of Uttarakhand. Similarly, the inter-State transactions in potatoes, brinjal & cauliflower have been carried out between the e-NAM mandis of Uttarakhand & Uttar Pradesh.  In all the cases, e-payments have been made through e-NAM portal. This will helps farmers get better market access, more buyers/ traders & realise better prices for their produce.

To facilitate inter State trade between the e-NAM States, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, Govt. of India, conducted series of coordination meetings with concerned States and Mandi board officials/ Mandi secretaries. As a result of these interactions, both the States have now facilitated licensing of traders of each other for inter-State trade on e-NAM portal.

E-NAM i.e. National Agriculture Market is a pan-India electronic trading (e-trading) portal which seeks to network the existing physical regulated wholesale market (known as APMC market) through a virtual platform to create a unified national market for agricultural commodities. e-NAM platform promotes better marketing opportunities for the farmers to sell their produce through online competitive and transparent price discovery system and online payment facility. It also promotes prices commensurate with quality of produce. The e-NAM portal provides single window services for all APMC related information and services. This includes commodity arrivals, quality & prices, buy & sell offers & e-payment settlement directly into farmers’ account, among other services.

Farmers can access the information on e-NAM easily through their mobile phones from anywhere. This online trading platform aims at reducing transaction costs, bridging information asymmetry and helps in expanding the market access for farmers. So far, 585 Regulated Markets of 16 States and 2 Union Territories have been integrated to e-NAM platform. Government has also decided to integrate additional 415 markets by March, 2020. “Logistic providers” information is also being provided in the e-NAM portal to traders from outside the State, which will facilitate transportation of commodities after trading. An Inter-State dashboard on e-NAM platform has been developed to promote inter State trade among e-NAM States.