Government of India has always been supporting the idea of strengthening Agricultural Produce Markey Committees (APMCs) and making them more transparent and competitive with the advent of new edge digital technologies through improving infrastructure and services offering to the farmers.

e-NAM (National Agriculture Market) has come a long way since its launched in April 2016. So far, 1361 Mandis of 23 States and 04 UTs have been integrated to e-NAM platform. As on 03^rd July 2023, more than 1.75 Crore Farmers & 2.45 Lakh traders have been registered on e-NAM portal. Total volume of 7.97 Crore MT & 25.82 Crore numbers (bamboo, betel leaves, coconut, lemon & sweet corn) collectively worth approximately Rs. 2.79 lakh crore of trade has been recorded on e-NAM platform.  

Achievement of e-NAM has been path breaking in Agri-marketing sector. Though 1361 regulated markets have become a part of the e-NAM platform, a need has been felt that for obtaining a competitive price especially for surplus farmer produce inter-mandi and more importantly, inter-State trade is crucial and it is essential that a more concerted intervention is needed for creating a larger reach for the farmer’s surplus produce through an efficient and seamless marketing system across India by promoting quality based trading with a transparent price discovery mechanism for inter-mandi and inter-State trade.

Taking a stride of policy reforms to the next level and with a vision to enhance the share of the producers in the end consumer price, Government of India had constituted a high-level Expert Committee on 21^st April, 2023, to promote inter-mandi & inter-State trade through conceptualization and implementation of Market Yard of National Importance (MNI). The said expert committee was chaired by Dr. Manoj Rajan, Special Secretary (Agriculture), Government of Karnataka with the members from State Agri Marketing Boards of Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Telangana, Odisha & Bihar. Apart from State representative, Director (Agriculture Marketing), DA&FW, GoI, Deputy AMA, DMI, representative from SFAC and Strategic Partner for e-NAM were also the members of the said committee. The Committee has been assigned the task of recommending the framework for implementation of MNI.

On 4^th July, 2023, Chairperson of the Expert Committee has submitted a report of the Expert Committee on MNI platform. Aforesaid committee has recommended the implementation framework of MNI-P platform, legal framework & inter-state reciprocity of license and movement, dispute resolution mechanism, rollout strategy etc. This platform will provide an opportunity to farmers of the participating states to sell their surplus produce beyond its state boundaries. This platform would enable to create digital ecosystems that leverage the expertise of various segments of agriculture value chain.

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