The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare has introduced seven new features in the electronic National Agriculture Market (eNAM), including extension of online sale and purchase of agricultural produce even in the agricultural market committees (AMCs) where eNAM is not being implemented.
A meeting to sensitise the AMC-eNAM secretaries, team leaders of training of trainers in eNAM, agricultural and rural market development project officials, Agricultural Marketing Department officials and district marketing officials was held here on Friday on eNAM and eServices. Representatives of Nagarjuna Fertilizers and Chemicals Ltd (NFCL), the service providers for eNAM across the country, explained the new features in the online platform.
The new features in eNAM include provision of incentives to traders who make online payments to farmers, allowing traders bid for basket selection of agricultural produce lots, facility to make payment to all lots purchased by a trader at once, among others.
eNAM was being implemented in 47 AMCs in the State, Agriculture Production Commissioner C. Parthasarathi said and added that trading of about 24 lakh tonnes of agricultural produce with transaction value of ₹7,500 crore was done during the financial year 2018-19 benefiting 32 lakh farmers.
The officials of the Marketing Department were in constant touch with their counterparts of Karnataka, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and a few other States for linking the online trading with the AMCs in those States to benefit farmers of all participating States with better price, he explained. The Commissioner directed the officials, particularly the secretaries of eNAM AMCs, to hold talks with transporters in their respective districts for movement of the agricultural produce and conduct training for all traders on the added features of eNAM.
The Marketing Department officials were also told to consult the officials of Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP) and National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) for collecting the details of farmer producer organisations (FPOs) for including them in the eNAM.
It was also decided to implement eServices with eNAM by issue of online licenses to private godowns, private cold storages, processing units and other purchase centres.
