Agriculture Minister Randhir Kumar has assured that all infrastructures required for the developing markets for the implementation of the National Agriculture Marketing and e-trading practices in the State will be made available by the State Government. Jharkhand, according to experts, becomes one of the most suitable States to adopt National Agriculture Marketing and e-trading practices in the Country. The Minister was speaking during the day long workshop held on the topic – ‘National Agricultural Market and e-Trading’ at Project Building auditorium on Tuesday organized by Jharkhand State Agricultural Marketing Board in association with National Institute of Agricultural Marketing, Jaipur.
“Since Jharkhand has already implemented the provisions like e-trading, single license valid across the State and single point levy as well as market fee under the Agriculture Produce Market Regulation (APMR) Act, there is no hurdle for the State implement the system immediately,” said Assistant Director of National Institute of Agricultural Marketing Shalendra. Only those states which have completed these prerequisites will be eligible for assistance under the scheme and Jharkhand is one of them, he added.
Shalendar, while expressing his view during the workshop also informed that proposal for the participation of at least 19 out of 28 markets across the state has already been sent to the center for its approval. “The scheme is to be implemented this year with a target to cover 250 markets across the Country in the first phase,” said Shalendra.
The software, according to Shalendra, will be provided by Ministry of Agriculture to the states and Union Territories free of cost while the hardware and infrastructure is to be developed by the State Government with the support of the center. “Rs 30 lakh for has been sanctioned for each of the market for developing infrastructure like computers, display board, assessing machines etc. Explaining the concept of National Agricultural Marketing and e-trading, Shalendra added that the motive behind the scheme is to integrate all 585 markets through one portal to improve transparency and competition leading to better price realization of their produce. It will further help farmers to participate more in the system.
The system will provide more information related to the market through which farmers can plan their production, harvesting or product preparation and increase price realization of their produce. Other participants in the workshop included Executive Director, AK Nath, Principal Technical Officer Jainath Kumar and Senior Engineer Amitabh Akuli of Center for Development of Advance Computing (C-DAC).