Online agri trade through e-NAM soars to Rs 8,584 crores

Hyderabad: Sale transactions of agricultural products in Telangana through e-NAM touched Rs 8,584 crore in 47 out of 189 market committees.

This was disclosed by State Agriculture Marketing Director G Lakshmi Bai during a review meeting of e-NAM operations in Telangana.

The meeting was attended by P K Swain, Joint Secretary (Marketing) and Agricultural Marketing Adviser to Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare and Principal Secretary Agriculture C Parthasarathi here on Friday.

The Director said that so far 47 out of 189 market committees in the State have been connected with National Agriculture Market (e-NAM), an online trading platform for agricultural commodities in the country.

The e-NAM connected markets have so far sold 27.51 lakh metric tonnes of agricultural products from the State and 11 more market committees will be connected to the online agricultural commodities trading platform soon.

The Union Agriculture Ministry official, while appreciating the progress being made by the State in the e-NAM operations, said the Centre has recently recognised godowns as markets.

This is to bring new markets within the reach of the farmers to sell their agriculture produce.

He also highlighted the need to recognise the State government godowns and private cold storages as markets. He asked the State officials to expedite deploying quality testing facilities in the market yards.

Besides, he asked the State officials to update the transport changes of the vehicles and market fee on the e-NAM website. Further, he stressed on the need to bring changes in the existing laws to make it easy for the traders from Maharashtra to purchase turmeric from the Telangana markets.

Principal Secretary C Parthasarathi asked the Director to frame rules and regulations to encourage inter-State trade and also to take steps to make available quality testing facilities in the e-NAM connected markets across the State.

Further, he asked to connect the warehouses stocking the agriculture produce brought by the farmers to extend the interest-free loans under Rythu Bandhu Scheme through the market committees.

In turn, this will help the farmers to sell their agriculture products at a competitive rate through the online trading platform.

He also assured the joint secretary that steps will be taken to take forward implementing the e-NAM in more market committees. Additional directors R Lakshmanudu and P Ravi Kumar were among those participated.