E-NAM creating hurdles for Indur farmers

Indur (Nizamabad): The electronic trading portal for National Agricultural Market (E-NAM) initiative which thought to be a game changer for farmers and agriculture sector is becoming a problem for the farmers of Indur in the district.

The E-NAM is a new modern technology for transforming the system of agricultural marketing for the benefit of farming community in India. Through e-NAM system, the farmer gets the option to sell her /his produce in any market throughout the country.

It will improve competitiveness in the market through larger participation of buyers and more transparent system of bidding by linking various agricultural markets in the country and putting them on electronic platform. But the farmers of Indur are facing problems with the same system.

The farmers of Indur got a higher yield with the cultivation of soya bean and sweet corn along with other crops this year due to timely and incessant rains. Expecting good price, many farmers brought their produce to the market.

They also felt happy with the introduction of e-NAM system since there will not be any scope of cheating by the middlemen and the commission agents.

But the market officials are entering only 200 entries till 12.00 noon and discouraging the remaining farmers telling them that the server is down. As a result, many farmers who are coming from long distances are sleeping in the market for their turn to sell their produce, the next day.

When the farmers questioned the market officials, they told the farmers that it was not possible to purchase nearly 2,000 lots of grains through e-trading in a single day. Moreover, entries will be accepted till 12.00 noon only.

As the server was dysfunctional, it is becoming impossible to enter more than 200 entries. If they are interested, they could sell their produce in open auction.

When some of the farmers tried to sell their produce under open auction, the traders started purchasing the sweet corn or maize for Rs.1250 and soya bean for Rs.2500.

Then, opposing the move, the farmers staged a dharna demanding the officials to stop e-trading and open auction and purchase their produce for a better price.

They said that the government introduced e-NAM system in Indur agricultural market with the intention of better price realisation for farmers and as an important incentive for raising productivity and production and in turn lead to higher growth of output and also to keep check on farm harvest prices which are prevailing below the minimum support price (MSP) in the harvest period and shoot up subsequently.

However, as the market officials along with middlemen and commission agents formed a syndicate and were trying to purchase the produce for a lesser price and are cheating them.

Right from morning to till afternoon, market officials are not allotting the numbers to purchase their produce and if questioned, they were telling that e-trading was not possible since the server was not working. Due to which some of the farmers are selling their produce to others in open action for less price.

When the traders offered Rs 1435 for sweet corn and Rs 2675 for soya bean, the farmers stopped their dharna.