The Union Minister of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, Rural Development and Panchayati Raj launched new features of National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) Platform   to strengthen agriculture marketing by farmers which will reduce their need to physically come to  wholesale mandis  for selling  their harvested produce, at a time when there is critical need to decongest mandis to effectively fight against COVID-19. These software modules are namely

(i) Warehouse based trading module in e-NAM software to  facilitate trade from warehouses based on e-NWR ; to enable small & marginal famers to directly trade their stored produce from selected WDRA registered warehouses which are declared deemed market by the State.

• Farmers will be able to place their produce in WDRA accredited warehouses.
• Depositor can save the Logistics expenses and will have better income.
• Farmers  can sell the  produce across the Nation  to get better Price and at the same time  can save himself from hassle of mandi.
• Farmers will be able to place their produce in WDRA accredited warehouses avail the benefit of pledge loan if required.
•  Price stabilization by matching supply and demand through time and place utility.

(ii)  FPO trading module in e-NAM whereby FPOs can trade their produce from their collection center without bringing the produce to APMC. FPO trading module is will enable FPOs to upload their produce from their premise/collection centres for bidding. They can upload the picture of the produce and quality parameters from their premises to help distant bidders to visualise the produce before bidding. FPOs have the option for delivery of produce either from their premises or by bringing to mandi premise after successful bidding.

• This will not only decongest the mandis but also reduce the logistics cost for the FPOs. This will not only decongest the mandis but also reduce the  hassle of FPOs to deal with mandis.
• This will help FPOs by reducing transaction costs (Transportation) and enhancing their bargaining power.
• Facilitates FPOs to avail online payment facility with ease of doing business.

In addition to facilitate inter-mandi and inter-state trade at this juncture, enhanced version of logistic module has been released whereby aggregators of transport logistic platform have  on boarded which helps users to avail trackable transport facilities for transporting their produce.

                          e-NAM was launched on 14 April 2016 as a pan-India electronic trade portal linking APMCs across the States. Already 585 mandis in 16 States and 02 Union Territories have been integrated on e-NAM portal.  e-NAM provides for contactless remote bidding and mobile-based any time payment for which traders do not need to either visit mandis or banks for the same.