1000 more APMCs will join eNAM platform, FM says in subtle message to farmer groups that mandis will co-exist with private players

Bengaluru: By announcing 1000 more agriculture product marketing committees (APMCs) or mandis will be linked to e-national agriculture market (e-NAM), finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has brought the subject of APMC into spotlight, seeking to send a message to farming groups that the government has no intention of dismantling an established APMC system.

Sections of political as well as farmer leaders had been skeptical that the BJP-ruled states were trying to weaken APMCs by throwing agriculture markets open for private participants, triggering protests from farmers.

The finance minister said 1000 more mandis will be brought into the e-NAM system in view of the transparency and competitiveness the electronic marketing system has brought into agriculture trade.


There are about 7000 mandis in the country with about 5000 of them being small and medium ones. The rest are either large or medium ones. Less than 1000 APMCs are currently on the eNAM platform.

The Centre has been pushing states to allow farmers to benefit from e-NAM or electronic national agricultural market -- a large seamless market for farmers to sell their produce -- instead of restricting themselves to selling their produce only at the local APMC.

e-NAM acts more or less like an Amazon or Flipkart for agricultural produce -- an electronic platform connecting the buyer and the seller. But to get the full benefit of e-NAM platform, States have to come on board.

The ambitious programme of connecting India’s Mandis actually began in a modest way at the APMC in Gulbarga in December 2011. The man who came up with the concept but began in a small way in Gulbarga is R.Ramaseshan, a former IAS officer from Karnataka. He established India’s first online platform, not as a government servant, but after resigning IAS and moving into NCDEX as its CEO. He believed only a technology-led market design can create a national market for agriculture and save farmers from distress sale. But he was not sure how APMCs would take the idea as there have always been strong lobbies controlling them. The success of the pilot, however, led to the neighbouring Telangana (then undivided AP) asking him to replicate it in its regulated mandis.