West Bengal’s 17 applications for setting the Centre’s electronic National Agriculture Market (eNAM) is still pending with the union ministry of agriculture since the state has not brought the changes in the APMC Act, required for setting up such markets. The state will have to bring changes in at least three necessary rules to get the Centre’s ~30 lakh grant to set the eNAM.
Union agriculture and farmers welfare minister Radha Mohan Singh at an interactive session organised by the Bharat Chamber of Commerce said the Centre wants the states to bring an end to all forms of physical trading of agri products in the whole sale markets for which a draft model APMC Act has been released for adopting.
While the model APMC Act was formulated in line with the guidelines of the Niti Aayog and many states adopted it, West Bengal remains the only state, which has neither adopted the model bill nor followed the guidelines of the Niti Aayog.
“There is a need to bring reforms in agriculture marketing and the Centre has considered allowing e-trading of agri commodities, facilitating direct marketing of produce and allowing contract farming, which will call for change in the APMC Act,” Singh said.
Under NAM, quality parameters for 69 agriculture and horticulture commodities have been notified for trading.The Centre is also persuading the states to adopt the Centre’s policy for land leasing and contract farming.
However, the Centre expects to integrate all 585 agriculture produce marketing committees under one electronic platform by March, 2018, Singh said.
After integration of all the mandis, NAM would increase the choice for a farmer after he brings his produce to a mandi. While local traders can bid for the produce, traders from other states can bid on the electronic platform. Farmers are free to choose either the local bid or the online bid but all transactions will be on the books of the local mandi. There will be a fee charged for the transaction.