Amid an indefinite strike by Nashik onion traders, the Centre is considering facilitating a higher volume of inter-state trade of the bulb over the e-NAM platform. The National Cooperative Consumers Federation (NCCF) sold nearly 2,000 tonnes of onion from Maharashtra’s Lasalgaon mandi (market) in Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Nagaland, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal over the past three weeks through online trading.

“Inter-state trading on e-NAM is happening and the word is spreading that NCCF is ready with quality onion to supply anywhere,” said a senior official. The need is to scale up the operation since there is no regulatory mandate to buy only in mandis, the official said, adding infrastructure is also required as an immediate alternative cannot be found.

Traders claim that Nafed and NCCF buy onions from Nashik farmers and sell them to APMCs in other States at much lower prices than what traders offer to bulk buyers. This practice is impacting their out-of-state trade.

APMCs’ threat

Nashik district guardian Minister Dada Bhuse is scheduled to meet onion traders again on Friday. He has already urged them to call off their indefinite strike that was launched on Wednesday.

The Lasalgaon mandi, which normally sees an average daily arrival of 15,000-20,000 quintals of onion during this period, and other agricultural produce marketing committee (APMC) boards on Thursday issued warnings to traders, even threatened to revoke trading licenses.

According to sources, over 10,200 tonnes of onions worth more than ₹22 crore have been sold by both NCCF and Nafed via e-NAM platform so far, since August 29 after the government started its market intervention programme targeting improved physical supplies in those centres where prices are higher than national average.

Mode of sales

While NCCF has sold about 4,900 tonnes, Nafed has sold the remaining 5,300 tonnes via e-NAM. Also, NCCF is able to sell 1,996 tonnes directly from Lasalgaon in other States, but the remaining 2,900 tonnes have been sold by taking the physical stock from Nashik to other States and then selling at local mandis through e-NAM. Nafed, on the other hand, is shifting the entire stock from Nashik via road transport and selling through the electronic platform in local mandis.

“Though e-NAM offers quality based price discovery, allowing the seller to obtain quality assaying certification from authorised entity and it upload on the portal, an integrated approach like making warehouse the spot for physical exchange of commodities between buyer and seller, transferring the onus of quality on the warehouse manager could be one of many options to improve trade volume,” said an expert.

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