The Ammoor Regulated Market became the first market in Tamil Nadu to be connected to electronic-National Agricultural Market (e-NAM) on Monday. This regulated market was among the 15 selected in the State to join the e-NAM platform.
S.J. Chiru, Commissioner for Agricultural Marketing and Agri Business, Government of Tamil Nadu launched the facility at the Ammoor Regulated Market in the presence of Collector S. A. Raman on Monday.
“So far, the regulated markets have not been connected on a virtual platform. This initiative seeks to integrate the markets in the State, and subsequently interlink markets in the country,” said S. Sankarasubramanian, secretary, Vellore Market Committee.
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Such integration of markets would provide a wider space for farmers to sell their produce, he said, adding that the Government of Tamil Nadu has identified 100 regulated markets across the State for this initiative. Of this, the Government of India, in the first phase, has selected 15 markets of which Ammoor was one.
e-NAM was being implemented under the Agri Tech Infrastructure Fund, approximately at the rate of ₹75 lakh per market. NAM was a pan-India electronic trading portal which would network the existing regulated markets to create a unified national market for agricultural commodities.
He added that the Tamil Nadu Agricultural Produce Marketing (Regulation) Act 1987 was being amended to bring in State Single Licence instead of the present market committee-level licence.
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The official said that a trader from a far-off place can quote prices according to the grade of the produce. An assaying method – grading – will be done for ascertaining the quality of the produce.
The expected outcome of this initiative was transparency in bidding, inter-market connectivity, better price discovery to farmers, lower transaction cost to buyers, stable prices to consumers and integrated value chain across the country.