States being told to dismantle APMCs: FM

Pitching for a unified market for farm produce, the Centre on Tuesday urged all states to adopt the central government’s panIndia electronic trading portal that networks the existing mandis to create a national market for agricultural commodities.

Addressing a National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) event, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said states are being cajoled to reject the Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMCs) and adopt electronic National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) so that farmers get better price for their produce.

“We’re making sure that the states are cajoled to reject APMCs. It has served its purpose at one time, there’s no doubt. But today, there are many difficulties associated with the agricultural produce market committee, which at every state level has become not so efficient in helping the farmers find better price points for their produce,” Sitharaman said.

Recently, the Centre has promoted e-NAM extensively in many states. “We are talking with states to sort of dismantle that (APMC) and move towards e-NAM for farmers,” she added.

So far, 21 e-NAM mandis of eight states, namely Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, had joined hands to start interstate trade on e-NAM. As many as 136 inter-state transactions and 14 commodities, which include vegetables, pulses, cereals, oilseeds and spices, have been traded under interstate trade through e-NAM platform.

Started with 25 commodities, e-trade facilities have been provided on 124 commodities with tradable parameters on the e-NAM portal. Through inter-state trade, farmers get better market access, prices and more buyers/traders.