E-NAM: Haryana Farmers May Be Among First Beneficiaries If Things Go As Planned

Haryana is taking dynamic measures to integrate 54 mandis with the electronic-national agriculture market (e-NAM) as part of the first phase of the project.

Out of the 54 set for incorporation into e-NAM, the Haryana State Agricultural Marketing Board (HSAMB) has already connected four grain markets of Ellenabad, Karnal, Ambala City and Shahbad under a pilot project; 27 will be linked by the end of this month; with the remaining 23 grain markets to be connected by 31 March, 2017.

However, other states have not shown similar enthusiasm to join e-NAM as they seem to fear the state-administered Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees (APMCs) will lose monopoly over the farmers’ produce.

They also feel it would diminish the business of APMC mandis, which rake in thousands of crores in cess and other charges annually, besides undisclosed amounts as rents to mandi functionaries, in return for allowing traders to bypass the maze of rules.

Now that Haryana has shown the way in effecting such a large-scale integration of its mandis with e-NAM, it can be only hoped that other states see reason and step in, too.

However, some grey areas of e-NAM that need to be addressed, are the levy of taxes, the right to sell anywhere in India, infrastructure for operating on an e-platform, new role of APMCs, warehousing and logistics coordination, and ensuring quality and grade.

On 14 April 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the e-NAM aiming to bring the existing APMCs on a common nationwide platform to facilitate trading in agricultural commodities. If implemented well, the e-NAM project will go long way in realising Prime Minister’s Modi’s mission of doubling farm incomes in India by 2022. However, the success of the project depends on the enthusiasm and participation of state governments.