E&Y transaction advisor for national agri-market project

Small farmers plan to invite bids for a strategic partner in preparing and running proposed electronic trading platform

The central government's plan for integrating the thousands of agriculture wholesale markets has taken another step.

Small Farmers’ Agri-Business Consortium (SFAC), the lead agency, has appointed EY to be the transaction advisor. And, plans to soon invite bids for a strategic partner in preparing and running the proposed electronic trading platform.

There are a little over 6,000 mandis or Agriculture Produce Market Committees in the country, catering to their respective jurisdictions; farmers in that area can sell their produce only in that mandi. The Centre, after having identified 585 major mandis, plans to electronically link these, to enable one national price and better return for farmers.

SFAC is implementing this. “We will appoint one strategic partner and plan to launch the platform before the end of the current financial year,” said an SFAC official.

The Karnataka government has already integrated its mandis. Andhra and Gujarat are in the process of doing so. The Centre's project and state-level linkages of mandis can run parallely.

“It is up to the respective states to decide whether they want to go with the national project or have a state-level electronic market and link that with the national project,” said the SFAC official.  

In July, the Union cabinet had approved the project and decided SFAC would be the lead agency to implement. A note it later issued had said: "There is no state-wise allocation under the scheme. However, desirous states would be required to meet the pre-requisites in terms of carrying out necessary agri-marketing reforms.” Private mandis can also be part of the national common market.

The plan is to integrate in phases. In 2015-16, about 250 mandis will be integrated. In 2016-17, another 200 and in 2017-18, a further 135.

The National Agriculture Market (NAM) model has been adopted from Karnataka, which already has a similar model of e-markets via public-private partnership for the past two years. Gujarat might be the first state to implement the project directly under NAM.