The Centre has integrated 250 regulated agricultural markets across 10 States to the online trading platform for agriculture produce, e-NAM, surpassing the target of 200 set for the period.
"Most states and agriculture mandi boards have cooperated well with us. At this pace, we could meet our goal of connecting all 585 regulated mandis by December 2017 instead of March 2018," said Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh, addressing a press conference on Thursday.
E-NAM, or the National Agriculture Market, is a pan-India electronic portal for the sale and purchase of agricultural produce launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in April this year.
The idea behind the online market is to reduce the transaction cost, provide a single licence valid across all markets, help farmers identify the best buyers, enable single point levy of market fees and maintain quality standards with provision for quality testing.