National agri market portal contract given to Nagarjuna Fertilizers

Online trading in 21 commodities on pilot bases to begin from April

Farmers in Karnataka are a privileged lot, as they get the best price not only in the mandi in their area, but also from traders based anywhere in the state, and that too on transparent online platform. Come September, farmers in outside that state will also be able to sell their produce to traders offering the best price from anywhere in the country, provided they are connected to the national market network.

This will be possible under NAM, a project linking 585 major mandis known as Agriculture Produce Market Committees (APMCs) electronically. The software contract has been awarded to Hyderabad-based a Nagarjuna Fertilizers and Chemicals-led consortium, which will be ready with an online platform for the pilot project in April and by September, about 200 mandis would have been linked electronically for trading.

A project to bring major farm commodity mandis under a single platform that provides a national market to farmers, with price transparency, has been implemented by the Small Farmers Agribusiness Consortium. SFAC  has been appointed the technology service provider. In July, the government had announced a project called online National Agriculture Market (NAM) scheme with allocaton of Rs 200 crore for three years.

"Online trading of 21 selected agricultural commodities will begin on the National Agriculture Market in the month of April 2016 in 20 pilot mandis, that will help bug fixing if any in the software and by September 2016, about 200 mandis will be integrated with this platform and start trading of selected commodities online", said Vasudha Mishra, MD, SFAC. She also said the plan is to link 585 major mandis by September 2017.

Nagarjuna Fertilizers and Chemicals Limited (NFCL), along with the Techno Brain Global FZE, a global IT company with a presence in India, Kenya, UAE and other parts of the world, will provide customised technical support. It will also help in developing software, and operating and maintaining of the NAM portal for five years. Training will be imparted to the participants of NAM portal state-wise. The consortium will have to hand-hold the project, giving training and maintaining it for five years.

Mishra also said, "We have mandated them to use open-source software, which helps us in customizing software suitable for specific commodities and the state or mandi's requirements, apart from saving cost." Similar existing projects are on Microsoft's net system. If the project moves as per plan, then by September 2016, a total of 200 mandis would be linked, another 200 by March 2017 and the remaining rest 185 mandis by September 2017.

The government is extending financial assistance in the form of subsidy to states, for linking their mandis or APMCs under the NAM project. Each state has to give its consent.

The concept is not new in India. NCDEX E-Markets Ltd, a subsidiary of Agri centric commodities derivatives exchange NCDEX, has already linked the mandis of Karnataka and farmers in that state are able to sell their produce to the best bidder. Commission agents or arhatiyas also deal on that platform. The farmers are even paid money on the spot and they produce they are selling there is graded and assayed, and the prices are quoted accordingly.

NCDEX E-Markets has started linking mandis from Andhra Pradesh and has now signed a similar agreement with Gujarat. Spokesperson of NCDEX E-Markets confirmed that it has received a mandate to link mandis in Gujarat electronically. How will such state specific project affect NAM? Mishra says, "Both Gujarat and AP have agreed to link their mandis to the NAM platform once it is operational".

When a farmer sells his produce on the Karnataka's common market platform, he gets the best price quoted by anyone from any mandi. Similarly, under NAM, a farmer can sell his produce to anyone in the country who offers the best price. Assaying and grading of produce will have to be handled by the respective state.