The Electronic National Agriculture Market (eNAM), a portal launched by the Modi government in April last year, has only seen limited success till date. While there are about 2,477 APMCs (Agriculture Produce Market Committees), only 455 of them, in 15 States (West Bengal and Tamil Nadu joined recently), are connected under eNAM. The platform has about 47.9-lakh farmers registered, but this compares poorly with the 13.6-crore-plus farmers in the country.
The Centre envisioned eNAM as an instrument for increasing the incomes of farmers by removing middlemen from the supply chain and also to ensure more competition. But the progress over the last one-and-a-half years is far from satisfactory.
Many States have still not amended their APMC Act to make a provision for electronic trading. Among the 15 States that have joined eNAM, only a few have done a trial run on inter-mandi trade.
In Maharashtra, of the 306 APMCs and 600 sub-yards, only 30 markets have joined eNAM, and online gate entries are being made in 29 of them. In most of them, e-auctions are also happening smoothly, claimed an official with the State Agriculture Marketing Department. Assaying labs that test the quality of crops have been set up in 20 mandis. Farmers that BusinessLine spoke to, however, had a different story to tell. They say that the eNAM platform is at a very rudimentary stage in the State. E-auctions happen only in a few APMCs and that too for select commodities.
There are assaying labs but they are not fully functional. Some have moisture meters, but they are not capable of fully grading the produce. So, traders end up examining the stock physically. For instance, in the Latur APMC, one of the largest for pulses in the country and one that is held up as a fully functional eNAM mandi by State officials, only gate entry and bidding happens online. There is no grading or assaying facility.
In some mandis in the State, including Sangamner APMC in Ahmednagar, a Computerised Auction System (developed by the State) — a platform similar to eNAM — is running. In these mandis, gate entry is online, but auctioning happens to a large extent in the traditional manner. These markets cannot communicate with eNAM markets as they operate on a different software.
In Uttar Pradesh, a BJP-ruled State, 100 of the total 252 APMCs are connected under eNAM. Officially, in all of them, online gate entry, e-auction and grading of produce takes placeand farmers also take payments through the portal’s payment gateway. Inter-mandi transactions were tried on a trial basis between Saharanpur and Muzaffarnagar, but since there were issues on who would bear the logistics cost, the trade has not picked up, said a highly placed source, who did not want to be named.
In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, too, there has not been much progress. In AP, about 22 markets, including Guntur, Kadapa, Adoni and Kurnool, have been connected to eNAM, according to government data. But none of them is fully functional.
In Guntur, for instance, which is Asia’s largest chilli market, only gate entry and bidding are done online. There is no sorting/assaying facility. Quality testing laboratories are not functional in a big way in any of the mandis in AP, said a source.
In Duggirala, where eNAM was launched in May, there is still no assaying facility for turmeric. However, this is the only mandi in AP where e-payment has started, and is on for the last one month. Almost 70 per cent of payments are made via the eNAM payment gateway, according to an official . In Telangana, about 44 markets are connected to eNAM. Inter-mandi trade has been tried between Mahaboobnagar and Badepalli for paddy, groundnut and cotton. But since there are issues on how the commodities will be transported, the trade has not picked up, said a source in the APMC in Badepalli.
Also, assaying labs are not able to manage all lots during the season time. For instance, while about 2,000-plus lots of paddy come daily during the season, the lab in Badepalli can manage only about 200-300 lots.
Assaying, the missing link
If trade on the eNAM platform has to pick up, there should be infrastructure for sorting and grading of the produce at the mandis. This will ensure traders from outside the APMC come online to buy the produce. The absence of an assaying facility puts marginal farmers at the mercy of middlemen, who fix the price for the commodity, said a market observer in Erode, who has been working with turmeric farmers for many years.
While the eNAM software comes for free, other infrastructure — including sorting and assaying machines and warehouses — have to be put up by the individual APMCs.
The Centre, in the last budget, increased the sanction for a mandi under eNAM to ₹75 lakh from the initial ₹30 lakh.
In sum, the Prime Minister’s ‘one country, one market’ project will remain a dream till APMCsbuild assaying infrastructure at their yards.
This is the eighth in a series on Farm Distress. The first report appeared on November 16. The previous article in the series appeared on November 23, on the Maharashtra cotton growers being hit by pink bollworm.