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Over five lakh farmers had traded farm produce worth ₹3,841 crore through the electronic-National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) — the online portal for trading in agriculture commodities — up to last week, said Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh.
The transactions took place at 250 wholesale markets connected to the online platform, where 54,000 traders made purchases. As many as 28,000 commission agents have registered themselves so far, the Minister said while inaugurating an Assocham conference on ‘Linking farmers with the market’ on Thursday.
“We had started it (in April ) on a pilot project basis and have tried to remove all the anomalies related to both hardware and software and it is now moving very fast towards empowering farmers to allow them to sell their produce,” Singh said.
The Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Ministry is working towards setting up hubs to provide milk, eggs, fruits, vegetables, flowers, etc near metro cities as part of the online trading platform.
“We are going to make relevant provisions under the mandi laws. We have conducted three-four meetings to make Gurgaon a hub for flowers, while Sonepat and Panipat will be made hubs for vegetables and Karnal for indigenous cow’s milk. We are also in talks with Uttar Pradesh in this regard,” the minister added.
Singh said that laboratories are being set up in electronic wholesale markets to check the quality of farmers’ produce so that any trader or farmer can purchase or sell it across India.
“These facilities are already available within the states but now we are working towards making it feasible inter-state and the GST (goods and services tax) will play a significant role in this regard,” informed Singh.
He said that the government would also work towards improving the mandi laws and try to establish them in the private sector by improving marketing related laws.
“We have made amendments in marketing related laws in about 22 States and licenses are being issued to set up mandis in the private sector,” said the Agriculture Minister.
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