Agricultural e-trade worth Rs. 10,000 Crore transacted through e-NAM in Punjab: Cheema
Chandigarh News: Today, Punjab Finance, Excise and Taxation Minister Advocate Sh. Harpal Singh Cheema said that e-trading of agricultural produce worth Rs. 10,000 Crore has been transacted through 79 Mandis of Punjab linked with the portal of electronic National Agriculture Market (e-NAM).
Addressing the conference titled ‘To Nurture the e-NAM platform of Punjab’ organised by Punjab Mandi Board in collaboration with Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI), the Finance Minister Sh. Harpal Singh Cheema said that so far 2,17,426 farmers, 8,703 Commission Agents, and 2,423 Traders have been registered with e-NAM and e-trade of 28.10 Lakh Ton of agriculture commodities including Potato, Basmati, Maize, Kinnow, Moong whole, Cotton and Green Peas, Capsicum, Melon, Lychee and Sunflower has been done.
Stressing on creating e-marketing awareness amongst farmers to meet future challenges, the Finance Minister said that he is elated to know that the farmers are being encouraged towards the e-NAM scheme besides providing them training regarding e-NAM portal and mobile app. He said that e-marketing facilitates farmers to sell their produce in other states of the country and around the world. He said that e-market is a round the clock open platform, so farmers can sell their produce anytime and whenever they want to sell. He said that farmers and especially young farmers should make efforts to explore online grocery stores, market place options available on social media sites and making their own web portals to market their produce directly to consumers for making agriculture a more profitable business. for this purpose e-NAM Portal will be of great use
Meanwhile, Chairman Punjab Mandi Board Sh. Harchand Singh Barsat said that the Mandi Board has undertook a number of initiatives to ensure better utilization of its infrastructure to meet future challenges. He said that the Board has also been working on generating new revenue resources and quoted the example of Kisan Bhawan that has tripled its revenue recently. He announced that 15 more APMCs will be attached to the e-NAM portal at the end of the year. Beside this experience of national and international markets of agricultural produce is shared by Dr. J.S Yadav, M.D, COSAMB, New Delhi and Mr. Dushyant Kumar Tyagi, CEO, Farmgate Technologies (Nagarjuna Group).
Special Chief Secretary Sh. KAP Sinha said that the motto of the Punjab Government is that the farmers should get empowered. He said that the state government has been working on providing opportunities like e-marketing to the farmers of the state so that they can compete in this fast changing world.
Secretary Punjab Mandi Board Smt. Amrit Kaur Gill welcomed the Chief Guest and other prominent personalities attending the conference. She stresses for the digitization of mandi operation.
Additional Secretary Punjab Mandi Board Sh. Rahul Gupta stakeholders from Industry COSAMB, Nagarjuna Group, Flying Trade India Limited, Pargo Foods Pvt Ltd etc and FICCI representative AVS Barsat were also present on this occasion.