e-NAM portal fails to deliver, farmers in a fix

Parveen Arora

Tribune News Service

Karnal, December 4

The much-hyped electronic national agriculture market (e-NAM), an e-trading platform for farmers to sell their produce across the country, does not seem to be serving its purpose in the Karnal grain market as farmers are not able to sell pulses through it.

Instead of encouraging farmers to use this platform, officials are reportedly forcing them to go to other markets to sell their pulses.

If officials in the Haryana State Agricultural Marketing Board (HSAMB) are to be believed, trading in crores has been registered through this platform so far. However, in reality, they are merely registering details of procurement made through the traditional mandi system.

Manoj Kumar, a farmer from Bajida village, learnt this the hard way when he went to the Karnal grain market to sell his produce. Even after the facility of e-NAM, he was not able to sell his pulses and had been running from pillar to post to sell it for the last one week.

“Karnal is in the dark zone and I am not getting a new tube well connection. Due to water scarcity, I have cultivated black gram on three acres and grown around 15 quintals. However, there is no buyer for my crop in the grain market,” he said.

“I went to the market committee office and requested officials to ensure procurement of my pulses through e-NAM, but to no avail,” he said.

Under the e-NAM, the authorities were supposed to test samples of produce in Karnal and upload the report online so that the farmer could find buyers in some other mandi registered on the e-NAM.

“Instead of testing my sample in the laboratory, I was asked to take the produce to Hisar or Siwani as there was no trader in the Karnal grain market,” he said. He said he was not getting a good price for his produce in the local retail market.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched e-NAM on April 14, 2016. In Haryana, the project was launched from Karnal and Ellenabad grain markets. As of now, e-NAM had been started in 585 grain markets of the country, 54 of which were in Haryana.

Online trading had been initiated in 438 markets. In Karnal, 58,145 farmers had got themselves registered on this platform. Hakikat Rai, secretary, market committee, Karnal, said due to lack of equipment related to pulses testing, the sample could not be tested at the e-NAM laboratory.

Hardeep Singh, Chief Administrator, HSAMB, admitted that e-NAM was not fully functional in the state. “I am not fully satisfied with working of e-NAM in the state. It is at the induction level and work is going on for smooth functioning of this project. We are trying our best for bringing about the change,” he said.

ABOUT THE FACILITY

• e-NAM is a pan-India electronic trading portal which networks APMC mandis to create a unified national market for agricultural commodities
• Under the facility, a farmer can sell produce anywhere in India for better remunerative price for his crops
• He can visit any e-NAM centre where authorities take sample of crop, test it and upload the report on the portal for buyers across the country for bids
• Once the farmer finds buyer, he can send the crop to that station while the proceeds are transferred to his account electronically
• Haryana was among the first states to adopt e-NAM with Karnal and Ellenabad agriculture produce marketing committees added to the network