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Radheshyam Jadhav Just 14 per cent of farmers have registered on the National Agriculture Market (eNAM). Of those who have registered, 51 per cent have not benefited from the trading platform.
eNAM, a pan-India electronic trading platform, was launched by the government in 2016 to create a transparent and competitive price discovery system to help farmers get remunerative prices for their produce. Data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, presented to the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, reveal that as on June 30, more than 1.64 crore farmers and more than 1.24 lakh traders have registered on eNAM.
Of the registered farmers, about 80 lakh (49 per cent) got the benefit of trading on the platform.
According to Census 2011, nearly 26.31 crore workers are engaged in the farm sector.
This includes 11.89 crore cultivators and 14.43 crore workers. But eNAM has not reached the majority of farmers even as it promotes better marketing opportunities through an online competitive and transparent price discovery system and online payment facility.
Single-window services
The eNAM portal provides single-window facilities for all information and services related to the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC).
This includes commodity arrivals, quality and prices, buy and sell offers, and e-payment settlement directly into farmers’ accounts. Farmers can access the portal through their mobile phones.
However, even those farmers who have registered themselves on the platform are not using it for their benefit, except those from a few States.
The data show that 91 per cent of registered farmers in Chhattisgarh have used the platform to their benefit while only 3 per cent in Jharkhand have done so.
In Telangana and Himachal Pradesh, more than 80 per cent of registered farmers have been benefited by the service.
The maximum number of registered farmers were from Uttar Pradesh (32,96,625) and Madhya Pradesh (30,09,991) while West Bengal had the least (12, 714).
The portal has recorded trade transactions of over 2,58,76,016 million tonnes with a total value of ₹71,069 crore.
The Centre has released ₹423.23 crore to the States for eNAM between FY16 and FY19.
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