Khammam Agriculture Market Committee’s plan to fully harness the recently introduced e-National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) online trading platform, the transparent mechanism for price discovery, at the market yard suffered a major jolt following the extensive damage to the e-bidding halls on the market yard premises in Friday’s incident of vandalism at the market yard.
Enraged over the steep fall in the price of chilli and alleged exploitative tactics of greedy traders, an irate group of chilli farmers ransacked the Khammam Agriculture Market, Telangana’s second largest chilli market, here on Friday. Angry farmers set ablaze costly equipment including weighing machines, computers, air-conditioners besides office furniture.
Around 40 computers, two LED display boards and other paraphernalia in the two e-bidding halls — one at the cotton market and another at the administrative building on the premises of the market yard, were extensively damaged in the incident, sources said. As many as 15 new weighing machines of the market yard each costing ₹15,000 were destroyed. Preliminary assessment of the damage put the property loss in the Friday’s attack on the market yard at over ₹70 lakh. Electronic trading of cotton through e-NAM was introduced in Khammam agriculture market yard in March first week this year after surmounting the initial hiccups and strong resistance from a section of traders and commission agents to the e-trading system. Khammam AMC’s plan to introduce e-trading facility for chilli under the e-NAM platform is likely to be delayed further considering the extensive damage of the computers and electronic equipment at the e-bidding halls in the market yard and the crisis-like situation triggered by crash in the price of chilli, sources added.
Open auction system
Efforts are on to clear the accumulated stocks of chilli piled up at the market yard through conventional open auction system, said an official of Khammam market yard. Around 30 weighing machines were brought from the market yards in the neighbouring districts to facilitate speedy disposal of the stocks, the official, who did not wish to be identified, told The Hindu .
