e-NAM benefits need to be utilized by odisha farmers

Union Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Secretary Shovan Kumar Pattnayak has urged the Odisha Government to bolster the National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) programme on a priority basis to help farmers in the State get remunerative prices for their produces.

Dr Pattnayak, who recently visited the State and discussed the issue with the officials, extended all-out support for scaling up e-NAM operations to benefit the farmers most, said sources here.

The Odisha State Agriculture Marketing Board (OSAMB) has since been connected to the National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) as online trading of agricultural produce in State had slowed down resulting in lack of competitive price to farmers in State to their produce, they said.

The e-NAM facility has been created at national level to facilitate the farmers to get remunerative price for their produce and existing Agriculture Produce Marketing Cooperatives (APMC) have been connected with online facility to help the farmers as a unified market, they said.

Even as 10 major mandis have been integrated to e-NAM in Odisha, none of the 672 traders registered in the portal have been issued unified licence which is necessary for a trader for inter-mandi and inter-State operations.

In the absence of unified licence, there is hardly any such trading taking place in the State, pointed out a senior official.

A senior official in the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare lamented for Odisha Government not taking the matter seriously even as other States are issuing such licence to all the traders registered in e-NAM in their States. He said necessary infrastructure such as dedicated internet leased line connectivity is also lacking in State. “Instead dongles are used which provide low net connectivity,” he added.

Absence of robust internet connectivity is directly impacting bidding and trading activities and has been a cause of concern for the farmers and traders.

At the mandi level also, the volume of physical arrival of commodities at gate on eNAM mandis is small as compared to total volume in the e-NAM platform.