E-NAM

National Agriculture Market or eNAM (where e is to be construed as electronic or digital) is an online trading platform for agricultural commodities in India. The market facilitates farmers, traders and buyers with online trading in commodities.
The market helps in better price discovery and providing facilities for smooth marketing of produce. The market transactions stood at ₹36,200 crore (equivalent to ₹480 billion or US$5.7 billion in 2023) by January 2018, mostly intra-market. Over 90 commodities including staple food grains, vegetables and fruits are currently listed in its list of commodities available for trade.
The eNAM markets are proving popular as the crops are weighed immediately and the stock is lifted on the same day and the payments are cleared online. In February 2018, some attractive features like MIS dashboard, BHIM and other mobile payments, enhanced features on the mobile app such as gate entry and payment through mobile phones and farmers database is helping adoption even more. The present trading is done mostly for intra-market, but in phases, it will be rolled out to trade in inter-market, inter-state, creating a unified national market for agricultural commodities.
It was launched by the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India. The electronic market pilot across India was launched on 14 April 2016 by Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi. The Portal is managed by Small Farmers Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC) with the technology provider, NFCL’s iKisan division. A similar project was initiated by the Congress government in the State of Karnataka, during UPA tenure and had been a great success. NDA government has rolled it out nationally.
On the eNAM platform, farmers can opt to trade directly on their own through the mobile app or through registered commission agents.
The eNAM is linked with 1000 markets (APMCs) in 18 states and 2 union territory, with over 50 lakh farmer membership in 18 states. The market is helping traders and exporters in procuring quality products in bulk, at one place and ensure transparent financial transactions.
The Government plans to connect over 22,000 GrAMs, local farmers markets, with the platform. To provide better grading and assaying services, the Agriculture Department is looking at looping in AGMARK for better certification.
The trading is done online, with trading computers or through an eNAM mobile application is available on Android for farmers and traders to bid and complete a transaction on the app, available in 8 languages. The MIS dashboard was introduced in February 2018, to give a greater insight into the performance of each market (mandi) in terms of arrival and trade in commodities.
The payment network RTGS/NEFT, debit card and internet banking was also integrated into the app. In 2017 mobile payment, Unified Payment Interface (UPI) facility through BHIM support was added in the app. Kotak Mahindra Bank (KMBL) has been selected as a digital payments partner by the National Agriculture Market (eNAM). KMBL will enable and facilitate online transactions for all stakeholders on the eNAM platform, including farmers, traders and farmer producer organizations (FPOs). Under this initiative, Kotak Mahindra Bank will provide payment, clearing and settlement services on the eNAM platform to facilitate trade between a buyer and seller of agri produce. Kotak Mahindra Bank has integrated its payment system and portal directly with the payment interface of eNAM, to enable quick and safe transactions for agri participants who have joined the platform.
The mobile phone gate entry, integration of farmers database and e-learning module is available. The agents are mostly using the eNAM mobile App for trading on behalf of farmers. The critical operation of gate entry from e-NAM mobile app helps facilitate the farmers to do advance gate entry on mobile app, which in turn will reduce a lot of time for farmers coming into the market and will bring huge efficiency and facilitate smooth arrival recording at the gate. A new feature has been introduced for farmers, where they can see the progress of their lot being traded and also real time bidding progress of price will be visible to farmers on their mobile app.
The six States with the most eNAMs as of March 2021 are Uttar Pradesh – 125 (Led by Mr. Anshul Sharma from SP Team), Madhya Pradesh – 80, Haryana - 81, Maharashtra – 118, Gujarat – 122, Telangana – 57 and Punjab - 37 (Led by Ajay Bansal from SP Team).
Small Farmers’ Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC) is the lead promoter of NAM. SFAC is a registered society of the Department of Agriculture, Cooperation & Farmers’ Welfare (DAC&FW) under the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer Welfare. SFAC through open tender selected Nagarjuna Fertilizers and Chemicals Ltd / Ikisan Division as Strategic Partner (SP) to develop, operate and maintain the NAM e-platform. SFAC implements NAM with the technical support of SP and budgetary grant support from DAC&FW. DAC&FW meets the expenses on software and its customization for the States and is providing it for free. DAC&FW is also giving a grant as one time fixed cost up to ₹30 lakhs per Mandi (other than to the private mandis) for installation of the e-market platform. Around 6500 APMCs operate throughout the country of which 585 district level mandis in States/UTs desirous of joining are planned to be linked by NAM. 470 mandis are planned to be integrated by March 2017 and the remaining by March 2018.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs had approved a Central Sector Scheme for Promotion of National Agricultural Market through Agri-Tech Infrastructure Fund (ATIF). The government has allocated ₹200 crores to the newly created ATIF. With this fund SFAC will implement NAM for three years from 2015-16 to 2017-18. Each market is given ₹30 lakhs by the department.
Buyers like large retailers, processors or exporters will be able to source commodities from any mandi in India thereby reducing the inter-mediation cost. Their physical presence and dependence on intermediaries will not be needed.
NAM will increase the number of traders and the competition among them increases. This translates into stable prices and availability to the consumers.
There will be a reduction in bookkeeping and reporting system as it will be generated automatically. Monitoring and regulation of traders and commission agents become easy. Transparency in the process eliminates the scope of manipulation of tendering/auctioning process. Market allocation fee will increase due to an accounting of all transactions taking place in the market. It will reduce the manpower requirements as the tendering/auctioning process is carried out electronically. For instance, the system declares the winner of lots within a few seconds. It eliminates information asymmetry as all the activities of an APMC can be known directly from the website.
NAM aims to improve the marketing aspect of the agriculture sector. With one license for the entire state and single point levy, an entire state becomes a market and the market fragmentation within the same state gets abolished. It will improve the supply chain of commodities and reduces wastages.
Agriculture initiatives schemes launched by the Narendra Modi regime are: