NEW DELHI, Dec 20: The Centre on Tuesday informed Parliament that it has achieved integration of 1,260 wholesale mandis, located in 22 states and three union territories, with the electronic-National Agriculture Market (e-NAM).
Right now, farmers auction their agricultural produce at 6,900-odd APMC (Agriculture Produce Marketing Committees) mandis spread across the nation. Some of them are also using online bidding through e-NAM platform.
In his written reply to the Lok Sabha, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said: “As on November 30, 2022, 1,260 mandis of 22 States and 3 UTs have been integrated with e-NAM platform.”
These states include Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Nagaland, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Chandigarh, Jammu & Kashmir, and Puducherry, he said.
Further, based on the proposals/Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) received from states/ UTs, the central government is integrating mandis with e-NAM platform, Tomar added.
E-NAM, which was launched in April 2016, is being implemented by Small Farmers Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC), a central government agency, with the support of state governments.
Since inception, the minister said about Rs 649.87 crore has been released for the integration of mandis with the eNAM platform.
Presently, e-NAM platform is integrating existing physical wholesale mandis/markets of different states and UTs to facilitate online trading of agricultural commodities through transparent price discovery method to enable farmers to realize better remunerative prices for their produce, he said.
The purpose of e-NAM is to create a network of existing mandis on a common online market platform as ‘One Nation, One Market’ for agricultural commodities in India. (PTI)