Ranchi: State agriculture minister Randhir Kumar Singh has revealed that Jharkhand was working on plans to connect all 590 rural haats with a pan-India electronic trading portal for agriculture produce launched by the Centre two years ago to eliminate middlemen and connect farmers directly to markets across the country.
As of now, 470 mandis run by state agriculture marketing boards/cooperatives across 14 states are connected to National Agriculture Market, or eNAM. In Jharkhand, out of 28 mandis, only 19 have been linked.
"We plan to take a leap now by also connecting village haats . There are challenges on the ground, but the department is trying to tackle them by working in tandem with all stakeholders - farmers, traders and marketing boards," Singh said on Tuesday while addressing a daylong workshop at Project Building on eNAM.
Describing it as one of the ambitious projects of the government aimed at doubling farmers income by 2022, the minister explained that eNAM enabled buyers/producers to list products with prices for traders across geographical regions to buy as per current price trends.
According to government statistics, 32,000 farmers are registered with eNAM, but barely a 1,000 traders are connected to it in Jharkhand. Lack of awareness, poor connectivity are the main reasons behind the lukewarm response to the scheme.
State agriculture secretary Pooja Singhal acknowledged the deficiencies, but claimed efforts were in to take correctives.
"To encourage more traders to adopt eNAM, we are issuing unified trade licenses within the state," she revealed.
Chief secretary Sudhir Tripathi, agriculture board officials and farmers' representatives from districts were among those who attended the workshop that saw an attendance of over 300.
Singhal said Niti Ayog had ranked Jharkhand 12th in agriculture marketing through eNAM.
"We are better than big states like UP (13th) and Punjab (14th), but lag far behind Maharashtra (first) and Gujarat (second)," she said and appealed to all sub-division officers, who were in-charge of district agriculture mandis, to work out action plans so that the government could pump in funds for their revival.
Singhal said that ever since eNam was launched, the 1 per cent mandi cess that used to be collected by agricultural marketing boards from traders had been removed.
"This plunged marketing boards into financial crisis owing to which overall management of mandis has suffered. Therefore, the government has now taken a decision to give grants to marketing boards," she said.
Moti Ram Bedia, a progressive farmer from Ormanjhi, said he was connected to eNAM from Pandra mandi in Ranchi but cited lack of awareness and other facilities as factors that were keeping other farmers from accessing the opportunity.
Agreed Radha Kant Giri, another progressive farmer from Ranchi. He suggested that farmers be told about the benefits of electronic trading in local languages. "Other issues like Net connectivity at mandis (eNam centre), adequate cold storage facilities, proper roads leading to, and lights inside, mandis need to be taken care of," he said.
