The Center informed Parliament on Tuesday that 1,260 wholesale mandis, spread across 22 states and three union territories, have been integrated with the electronic National Agriculture Market (e-NAM). Farmers currently sell their produce at 6,900 APMC (Agriculture Produce Marketing Committees) mandis located all over the country.
Some of them also use the e-NAM platform for online bidding. Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar stated in a written response to the Lok Sabha that as of November 30, 2022, 1,260 mandis from 22 States and 3 UTs had been integrated with the e-NAM platform.
In addition to these, he listed the following states: Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Nagaland, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Chandigarh, Jammu & Kashmir, and Puducher Furthermore, the central government is integrating mandis with the e-NAM platform based on the proposals/Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) received from states/UTs, Tomar continued.
Small Farmers Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC), a federal agency, is implementing e-NAM, which was introduced in April 2016, with the assistance of state governments.
The minister stated that approximately Rs 649.87 crore has been made available since inception for the integration of mandis with the e-NAM platform. In order to facilitate online trading of agricultural commodities through transparent price discovery method and help farmers realize more lucrative prices for their produce, the e-NAM platform is currently integrating the physical wholesale mandis/markets of various states and UTs.
The goal of e-NAM is to connect already-existing mandis to form a network that will serve as India's "One Nation, One Market" for agricultural products.