Chhattisgarh is among five States in the country where the Union Ministry of Agriculture would provide financial assistance of Rs 30 lakh per ‘mandi’ for installing software as well as unifying all mandis in the State under a common ‘e-market’ platform.
It has urged the State Governments to introduce e-market platform within the State to unify mandis so that farmers are free to sell in any of the mandis. Department of Agriculture under the Ministry of Agriculture will provide free software and help in its customization for the states, officials stated.
In order to ensure free flow of Agricultural produce from one market area to another, save producers from multiple levies of mandi charges and to ensure agro commodities for consumer at reasonable prices, the Central Government has drawn a time bound programme for developing National Agriculture Market .
The Centre has earmarked Rs 175 crore to provide assistance of about Rs 30 lakh per mandi for the software and it has already approved financial assistance for Gujarat, Maharashtra, Telangana, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh.
The National e-platform developed for this purpose will cover 250 Agri mandis by September 2016 and by March 2018 a total of 585 mandis will have the system to ensure the farmers’ access to their produce across the markets.
The National Agriculture Market (NAM) would offer a common market places by providing real time prices on a national level to the participants of the Agri Produce eco- systems . It would create an efficient trading system for Agri-produce , which would enable transaction between buyers and sellers from their existing location, thus expending the existing market and also facilitating transactions in places where marks physically do not exist, over a period of time.
A new distribution channel for procurement and sale will come into existence, which would result in better price discovery for Agri- Produce, largely benefiting the frames. The prices reflected would be determined by demand and supply prevailing from time to time and shall be captured on real time basis.
It may be recalled that in the month of May this year, The Chhattisgarh Government had approved proposal to set up an Agro Shopping Mall and a road for Charama Agriculture Produce Market in insurgency infested Kanker district of Bastar region.
Agriculture Minister Brijmohan Agrawal had allocated Rs Two crore for the purpose. A new fruits and vegetables market will also come up at Kanker soon, it was announced.
An Agro Mall had also been planned at Raipur Agriculture Produce Market .
This was informed in a meeting of Chhattisgarh State Agriculture Marketing Board presided over by Agriculture Minister Brijmohan Agrawal early this year.
The meeting decided to allocate 15 per cent of the funds collected at mandis for the welfare activities of farmers and ten per cent for the protection of cows in villages. Several proposals were approved at the meeting.
It was also decided that the premises of 50 large mandis will be re-constructed.
Agrawal ordered for constructing godowns with a storage capacity of 10 lakh tonnes at the large mandis. The design of godowns should be such that foodgrains are protected, he had stated.