[Answered]Comment on the significance of e-NAM initiative as a tool to resolve some of the agricultural issues in India.

eNAM is pan-India electronic trading portal for farm produce which aims to create a unified national market for agricultural commodities by integrating existing Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) markets. It provides single window service for all APMC related services and information, such as commodity arrivals and prices, provision for responding to trade offers, buy and sell trade offers, among other services. On this platform, farmers can showcase their produce online from their nearest market and traders can quote price from anywhere. It aims to foster greater competition among traders and also ensure open price discovery and better returns to farmers.

Issues in agricultural marketing:

1. There is fragmented market and poor mandi linkage to farmers.
2. Market domination by organised traders by dominating mandis is an issues.
3. There is a lack of direct access to market for the farmers, that lead to their exploitation in the hands of intermediaries.
4. Farmers could buy and sell only in the government-designated Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) market-yards.
5. There are information irregularity between the buyers and sellers that lead to corrupt practices.
6. There are issues of storage facilities that often lead to spoilage of the produce.

Significance of e-NAM in removing these issues:

1. With wide participation and perfect sync between markets and stakeholders e-NAM can be successful.
2. e-NAM authorities can work to encourage farmers to produce better quality crop and meeting exchange standards.
3. Price distribution alerts through mobile phones could serve as a reliable reference price for farmers.
4. Monitoring the warehouses for the incoming and outgoing stocks will make the initiative stronger.
5. The profiles of the farmers linked with e-NAM can be used for credibility reports by financial institutions.
6. Indian agriculture needs robust and transparent institutions for e-NAM to deliver long-term benefits.
7. e-nam is important in Creating a unified market through online trading platform across the country (at state and national level).
8. For the farmers, NAM promises more options for sale. It would increase their access to markets through warehouse based sales and thus obviate the need to transport his produce to the mandi.
9. Eliminating information irregularity between the buyers and sellers and promoting real time price finding on the basis of actual demand and supply.
10. Bulk buyers, processors, exporters etc. benefit from being able to participate directly in trading at the local mandi/market level through the NAM platform, thereby reducing their intermediation costs.
11. e-NAM help by providing an accessible nationwide market for the farmer with equal prices for the quality of his produce.
12. The gradual integration of all the major mandis in the States into NAM will ensure common procedures for issue of licences, levy of fee and movement of produce.

e-NAM platform promotes better marketing opportunities for farmers to sell their produce through online competitive and transparent price discovery system and online payment facility. So far e-NAM has helped in many ways especially by integrating Mandi’s across the states. An Inter-State dashboard on e-NAM platform has been developed to promote inter State trade among e-NAM States.