Speed Post News Network
New Delhi : Union Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on April 2, 2020, launched here new features of National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) Platform to strengthen agriculture marketing by farmers which will reduce their need to physically come to wholesale mandis for selling their harvested produce, at a time when there is critical need to decongest mandis to effectively fight against COVID-19.
These software modules are namely (i) Warehouse based trading module in e-NAM software to facilitate trade from warehouses based on e-NWR (ii) FPO trading module in e-NAM whereby FPOs can trade their produce from their collection center without bringing the produce to APMC. In addition, to facilitate inter-mandi and inter-state trade at this juncture, enhanced version of logistic module has been released whereby aggregators of transport logistic platform have on boarded which helps users avail trackable transport facilities for transporting their produce, according to a PIB release.
Speaking on the occasion, Tomar said that e-NAM was launched on April 14, 2016, as a pan-India electronic trade portal linking APMCs across the States. Already 585 mandis in 16 States and 2 Union Territories have been integrated on e-NAM portal. He also said that e-NAM will be soon be expanded to cover additional 415 mandis, which will take the total number of e-NAM mandis to 1,000. He said e-NAM provides for contactless remote bidding and mobile-based any time payment for which traders do not need to either visit mandis or banks for the same. This helps improve social distancing and safety in the APMC markets to fight against COVID-19.
The minister said that the mandis play a critical role in maintaining the supply chain of Grains, Fruits & Vegetables. e-NAM is well poised to play a critical role during the period of Covid-19 to decongest mandis while helping the farmers at same time.