Bhubaneswar: Odisha has achieved a new height in the cooperative sector with successful onboarding of all 66 Regulated Marking Committees (RMCs) of the State in the e-NAM portal.
Odisha has left many agriculturally advanced States in the country far behind and has achieved the unique feat of 100 percent onboarding of its agricultural markets under all RMCs.
Under the visionary leadership of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Cooperative Minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak, Principal Secretary Sanjeeb Kumar Chadha and their team achieved the milestone, which immensely helped the farmers of the State, an official said here on Tuesday.
The Odisha State Agricultural Marketing Board (OSAM Board) under the administrative control of the Cooperation Department has taken this initiative. All the 66 Regulated Market Committees of the State have been successfully onboarded to the e-NAM platform.
It is pertinent to mention here that e-NAM is a pan India online platform developed by Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Government of India with the aim to link all the buyers and sellers of agricultural produce, virtually, through the APMCs (Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees)/ Regulated Market Committees (RMCs).
With only 10 RMCs in the e-NAM platform in the year 2017, Odisha has left many agriculturally advanced states in the country far behind and has achieved the unique feat of 100% onboarding of its agricultural markets under all RMCs, said the Principal Secretary Shri Chadha.
In moving one step further, the Department has onboarded 401 Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) to the Agri-Marketing platform. About 400 Women Self Help Groups (WSHGs) as members of these FPOs, can now reap the benefits of this online platform in marketing of their produce, he said.
Facilities have now been developed enabling transactions through android mobile phones. A farmer having an android mobile phone can now access the Agri-commodities market functioning across the country and sell his produce at the price of his choice from within the comforts of his home by use of his fingertip. All steps are being taken to ensure that the RMCS are operating without hassles, under the guidance of Minister Shri Nayak, he said.
To further facilitate efficient use of the online platform and by foreseeing the required policy level interventions in future, he said the Department has undertaken some strategically important and futuristic Agri-Marketing Reforms. These include- unified licensing system and single point levy of market fee.
The Odisha State Agricultural Produce Marketing Act has been suitably amended to make ways for these much-needed reforms. The e-NAM platform along with these reforms have brought in the benefits of transparency in trade, better pricing, access of farmers to all the mandis across the country, availability of up to date price information and online receipt of payment. Bargaining power of farmers has increased to a considerable extent due to this futuristic intervention with multiple buyer options, Shri Chadha informed.
Further, to boost agricultural marketing, the Cooperation Department has initiated a project on Agri Marketing Network linking all 66 RMCs, 43 Krushak Bazars, 76 Municipal Markets including 800 FPOs and WSHGs.
To facilitate the implementation of the project, OSAM Board has entered into an agreement with the Agri-Business Incubator wing of International Crop Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), an international organisation notified by the United Nations and Government of India.
On successful completion of the project, the Board has aimed to bring in transformative changes in the sector of marketing of fruits and vegetables, ultimately empowering the primary producers especially, small and marginal farmers which in turn will serve the target of doubling farmers income.
Till date, 3.31 lakh farmers producing surplus marketable agricultural products have been registered by the RMCs of the State in the portal empowering them to sell their products in the pan India market without physically moving out of their villages.
In addition to that, 8297 traders from the state have also been registered in the online portal to facilitate their access to the tradable Agri-produces across the country.
The commodities being transacted through the RMCs include fruits and vegetables, coconut, maize, cotton, chilly, turmeric, ginger, cashew nuts, betel leaves, ground nuts, fish, prawn, crab, dry fish etc.
Now, all these efforts of the State Government have started yielding results. The farmers of the state have accepted this modern idea very enthusiastically and till now have traded Agri-Commodities to the tune of 90.44 lakh quintals and fetched a whopping amount of Rs 2364.80 crores.
The registered FPOs have traded 3.20 lakh quintals of Agri-commodities worth Rs 62.95 crores by using this platform. This platform has also helped in executing 20,373 inter-mandi trades of 10.06 lakh quintals of Agri-commodities worth Rs 183.29 crores.
There is also provision of trade via farm gate module within this platform and 129 trades have been executed involving traded quantities of 654.2 quintals of Agri-commodities. As is envisaged, these figures are going to grow in future benefiting the farmers, thanks to the foresightedness of the Department.
To further increase the scope of Agri-marketing the Department is organizing buyer-seller meets in all RMCs across the State. This techno-legal intervention will certainly fasten the achievement of the goal of doubling farmers’ income.
The Cooperation Department has set a target for itself to further extend this platform to the next level down the line. The Rural Hats/Gramin Hats in the Gram Panchayat level are the next target of the Department.
It has been envisioned to link all these small and medium markets functioning in the State to this electronic platform and extend the benefits of online Agri-commodities marketing to the small/marginal farmers residing at the remotest locality.
The Team Cooperation under personal supervision of Principal Secretary Shri Chadha is on the job.