WHAT’S IN A eNAM?
DUSHYANT K. TYAGI 52 AGRI-BUSINESS SPECIALIST, HYDERABAD
At mandis across the country, farmers are slowly but surely getting a better deal. eNAM or Electronic National Agriculture Market (eNAM), a pan-India trading portal developed by Nagarjuna Fertilisers and Chemicals Limited (NFCL), is driving agricultural trade towards the objective of remunerative prices for farmers by plugging the rampant trade malpractices in mandis. While the farmer is the primary stakeholder, eNAM also provides traders, commission agents and exporters better business opportunities through a unified and extensive marketplace.
“eNAM facilitates profits through better marketing, as against emphasis on productivity. Real-time information on prices creates healthy competition among buyers and increases farmers’ negotiation capabilities,” says Dushyant K. Tyagi, head of iKisan Agri, the informatics and services division of NFCL. A postgraduate in plant breeding from G.B. Pant University, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand, Tyagi marketed fertilisers and chemicals before moving on to finding solutions to improve farmers’ incomes.
Launched in April 2016, eNAM is transforming the way India trades in farm produce. It has roped in 585 markets across 16 states and two Union territories, linking more than 12 million farmers, 130,000 traders and 65,000 commission agents. eNAM trades in 114 commodities, and goods worth Rs 52,173 crore have been traded so far. The portal is available in Hindi, Telugu, Odiya, Bangla, Tamil, Gujarati and Marathi.
eNAM allows trading of commodities at mandis through mobile and web applications. For seamless operations, it mandates three changes in the agricultural marketing laws of states—provide for electronic trading, single trading licences that are valid in all mandis in a state and a single-window levy of transaction fees. But bringing all on board is the challenge.
“eNAM is a transparent system for regulated fair trade. Farmers get fair payments and are spared the tricks employed by unscrupulous traders to manipulate the prices,” says Ananthula Ravinder, a paddy and pulses trader from Suryapet, Telangana. Online payments are picking up, the mobile app is seeing more users by the day and traders are gradually shifting from traditional auctioning practices to eNAM, indicating a growing acceptance of new technology. Finally, the mandi is farmer-friendly.
“eNAM is the game-changer that can put an end to rate-fixing of agricultural produce by traders to stop the exploitation of farmers” Dr H.S. Baweja, Professor, Dr Y.S. Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Solan, Himachal Pradesh