Amid the protest by onion traders in Nashik, the cooperative major NCCF continues to sell the bulb through the electronic National Agricultural Market (e-NAM) platform to other States from Maharashtra and with the rising demand the single day turnover had a record ₹2.21 crore transaction on September 26 on this portal.
According to official data, the National Cooperative Consumers’ Federation of India (NCCF) sold 1,300.75 tonnes of onion valued at ₹2.21 crore (approximately at ₹17/kg) to buyers in Guntur and Ravulapalem (Andhra Pradesh), Noida (Uttar Pradesh), Dhanbad (Jharkhand), Amritsar and Jalandhar (Punjab) and Siliguri (West Bengal).
In view of the strike, NCCF has used the farm-gate module of e-NAM, in which farmers are allowed to sell from their premises by uploading a picture of the produce and quality assurance certificate.
“Under the Farmgate module, registered farmer will upload the lot details, assaying report and weight information and assign a mandi through which sale has to be transacted. Once the lot is auto approved, bidding starts by the buyers and finally mandi declares the winner. In case the farmer accepts the bid price, further process starts,” said an official, adding e-NAM also has provision to make arrangement for stock transfer from farm gate to the buyer through a logistics module.
“Onion is being sold at the local mandi in phase II at about ₹120-140 for 5 kg to small retailers, whereas the 40-kg bag is cheaper,” said Lal Bihari, a vegetable vendor in Noida.
Maharashtra state marketing minister Abdul Sattar on Tuesday had said that a meeting in Delhi has been scheduled for September 29 and the state government is hopeful of an amicable solution found.
According to Consumer Affairs Ministry data, all India average retail price of onion was ₹33.46/kg on September 26 whereas it was in the range of ₹30-40/kg in most of the States except the north-eastern region. Also Punjab, where a large volume of onion were sold by NCCF and Nafed, has reported an average ₹25/kg in retail market, according to ministry data.