23 mandis in 8 states integrated with e-agri market so far

Government today said 23 mandis in eight states have been integrated with the electronic national agriculture market (e-NAM) so far while the target is to connect 200 by September.
"Proposals from 12 states for integration of 365 mandis with e-NAM have been approved, of which 23 mandis have been integrated with e-NAM," Minister of State for Agriculture Sudarshan Bhagat said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.
The target is to integrate 200 mandis by September this year and a total of 585 by March 2018, he said.
For Telangana, the Centre has approved integration of 44 mandis with e-NAM, out of which five have been linked so far, he added.

As per the data placed before the Upper House, six mandis from Uttar Pradesh, five from Telangana, four from Haryana and three from Gujarat have been integrated into e-NAM. Himachal has integrated two mandis while Jharkhand, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh have done one each.
However, only one commodity is being traded at present via electronic platform from each mandi, the data showed.

For instance, in Uttar Pradesh, all six mandis are trading wheat on the e-platform while Patan district in Gujarat is dealing in castor seed and Botad mandi in Bhavnagar district is handling chana (black gram).
The two mandis of Haryana are trading sunflower seed while Himachal Pradesh is focussed on shelling peas, the data showed.

In April, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched the e-NAM scheme in 21 mandis of eight states. The government has allocated Rs 200 crore for this scheme.
Under the scheme, a pan India e-trading portal is being deployed in select regulated wholesale markets in states.
For integration with e-NAM, states are required to complete certain pre-requisite reforms in their respective Agriculture Produce Marketing (Regulation) Acts.
The scheme is expected to benefit farmers through enhanced market access by way of allowing remote online bidding for their produce, removal of information asymmetry between buyers and sellers, real-time price discovery based on actual demand-supply gap through transparent online auction and online payment directly to farmers' accounts.