e-NAM which is introduced as an online trading platform for farm commodities is lagging to attain its goals.
What is e-Nam?
Electronic National Agriculture Market (eNAM), is a pan-India electronic trading portal launched by Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare.
The Portal is managed by Small Farmers’ Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC) appointed by the Ministry.
It aims to facilitate farmers, traders, buyers, exporters and processors with a common platform for trading commodities.
It currently links 450 APMCs (Agriculture Produce Marketing Committees) from across 13states.
69 commodities including staple food grains, vegetables and fruits are currently listed in its list of commodities available for trade.
Traders and exporters need to get themselves registered with the portal to access its services.
What are reasons for underperformance of e-Nam?
State agricultural departments have been finding it difficult to convince all stakeholders like farmers, traders and commission agents to move to the online platform.
The platform is not fully functional in any State as there are no scientific sorting/grading facilities or quality testing machines.
Lack of technical expertise and internet facility at the State Agricultural Departments has also delayed the setting up of grading/assaying facilities.
The huge share of the trade recorded in the e-NAM portal was actually carried out offline and the values were fed into the portal to make it look like genuine online transactions.
This completely defeats the purpose as the main objective of an online auction portal is to help price discovery.
How this can be addressed?
For success of e-NAM every State need to amend its APMC Act to make a provision for electronic auction as a mode of price discovery.
The States opting for e-NAM must introduce structural adjustments to address any inconveniences faced.
Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana aims to link release of funds to progress in agri reforms and in implementation of e-NAM may hopefully put pressure on the States.
