Integration of mandis with eNAM at snail's pace
New Delhi: It seems the government's tall claims of creating a robust pan-India electronic trading portal by integrating mandis with National Agriculture Market (eNAM) have fallen flat as even after more than 4 years of its launch, only 1,000 mandis have been integrated with eNAM and just 1.69 crore farmers have been registered on the platform.
It's must to mention that, the government had integrated 1,000 mandis in May 2020 and since then not even a single mandi has been added to the platform, which indicates the slow pace of the mandi integration.
However, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has announced adding another 1,000 mandis with eNAM, but the FM has not mentioned any specific timeline for the integration of another 1,000 mandis.
As per reports, there are above 6,000 mandis and over 15 crore registered farmers in the country.
In a written reply to Lok Sabha, Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar stated that as on January 24, 1,000 mandis of 18 states and 3 UTs have been integrated with e-NAM platform and so far more than 1.69 crore farmers have been registered on the platform. He also said that Bhiwandi (Maharashtra) mandi is not integrated with e-NAM.
As per the report provided the minister, out of 1,000 mandis, highest 144 mandis of Rajasthan has been integrated with e-NAM, while Uttar Pradesh's 125 mandis have been digitised and Gujarat's 122 mandis are functioning under the purview of e-NAM.
Maharashtra has integrated its 118 mandis with e-NAM, while 81 and 80 mandis of Haryana and Madhya Pradesh respectively have been added on e-NAM. In Tamil Nadu, 63 mandis are with e-NAM followed by Telangana (57), Odisha (41), Punjab (37), Andhra Pradesh (33), Himachal Pradesh (19), Jharkhand (19) and West Bengal (18), etc.
Notably, e-NAM is a virtual platform integrating physical wholesale mandis/markets of different states/UTs to facilitate online trading of agriculture and horticulture commodities through transparent price discovery method to enable farmers to realise better remunerative prices for their produce.
