The government is planning to roll out a revamped version of the electronic National Agriculture Market (e-NAM), as it seeks to boost inter-state and inter-mandi trade on this platform.
Sources told FE that the proposed e-NAM 2.0 will have features like automated bidding, facility for demand-supply data and open network of digital commerce-linked services including assaying, logistics and fintech support.
“While currently there was no provision on the e-NAM facility for availing assaying and transportation facilities provided by private parties in physical mandis, the revamped platform will have such facilities which would help inter-state trading in crops as well as fruits and vegetables,” an official said.
Officials said it would reduce food waste and get best prices to farmers as intermediaries are reduced.
Features of e-NAM 2.0
Sources said that work for launching e-NAM 2.0 is currently on and likely to be rolled out in a couple of months. Officials said the new platform is being built to handle a high volume of commodities trade to ensure that the system does not slow down at the peak procurement level.
Since the launch of the platform in April, 2016, while Rs 4.41 lakh crore worth of agricultural commodities have been traded on it till now, out of which share of inter-state trade was only Rs 76.8 crore. Overall sales turnover of e-NAM, rose to Rs 80,262 crore in 2024-25, a marginal increase of 2% compared to FY24, while volume of inter-state trade was still Rs 21 crore. Inter-mandi e-NAM trade since the start has been Rs 6,230 crore.
The focus of the e-NAM 2.0 would be to ensure ease of doing intra-state ad inter-state trade in agricultural commodities with an objective to overcome logistic gaps and enable faster trade, reduced wastage and boost farmer incomes. The platform would have facilities such as QR based lot tracking and issuance of timely notifications.
Expanding reach and farmer participation
Sources said that inter-state and inter-mandi trades on the digital platform, launched over nine years back remain very small compared to overall trade indicating that most of the sales on e-NAM are reported from within the wholesale markets.
The e-NAM has already digitally integrated over 1,500 wholesale markets. In FY 2022-23, e-NAM for the first time facilitated inter-state trade of apple from Jammu and Kashmir to Jharkhand.
Overall sales turnover of e-NAM, rose to Rs 80,262 crore in 2024-25, a marginal increase of 2% compared to FY24. Also, 17.94 million farmers, 4,557 FPOs, 269,688 traders and 1,17,590 commission agents are registered with e-NAM.
Currently, 1522 mandis in 27 states and union territories including Tamil Nadu (213), Rajasthan (173), Gujarat (144), Maharashtra (133), Uttar Pradesh (162) and Haryana (108) mandis are on e-NAM platform.
At present, 231 agricultural, horticultural and other commodities notified by respective state governments were finalized for online e-auction in e-NAM platform.
Sources said there are estimated to be around 7000 mandis in the country and after the recommendation from mandi boards of respective states, the marketplace for agricultural produce comes on board of e-NAM.