Copyright © HT Digital Streams Limited All rights reserved. Center rolls back use of revamped agri-trade portal in most Rajasthan mandis. The 10 mandis using e-NAM 2.0 will run e-NAM 1.0 in parallel to guide farmers through the transition. (Bloomberg) Summary The Union government has significantly scaled back the use of its revamped electronic agricultural trade portal, e-NAM 2.0, across Rajasthan. NEW DELHI: The Union government has rolled back the use of the revamped version of the electronic agriculture trading portal (e-NAM 2.0) across most of Rajasthan for now and will continue to operate the previous version of the platform in all 173 mandis, or wholesale markets, limiting the upgraded platform to just 10 mandis of the two people with direct knowledge of the development. The 10 mandis where the electronic National Agricultural Market (e-NAM 2.0) is currently in use will also run e-NAM 1.0 in parallel, so that farmers get a proper handle during the transition to the new system, they said. “The ministry opted for a phased approach to avoid any disruption to auctions, invoicing or payments during peak arrivals, to ensure that farmers can continue to use the current platform until the upgraded system is proven stable,” said one of the two people quoted above. Under the revised plan, e-NAM 1.0 will remain fully operational while e-NAM 2.0 will be piloted in the selected mandis to gauge trading volumes, settlement efficiency and system reliability, this person said. The ministry will roll out the new platform across all 173 mandis in Rajasthan only after the pilot shows smooth, uninterrupted operations, the second person said. In response to a Mint query, the agriculture ministry’s Small Farmers Agri-Business Consortium (SFAC) said that after the pilot launch of e-NAM 2.0 in Rajasthan, certain suggestions and issues were reported. The team is working to incorporate the suggestions and resolve the issues. “Meanwhile, it has been decided to conduct operations through e-NAM 1.0 in Rajasthan and to limit the deployment to 10 mandis in Rajasthan,” it said. Tonk, Jodhpur and Sujangarh are among the 10 mandis where the pilot version of e-NAM 2.0 is being operated. Plenty of glitches Mint reported on December 8 that the government’s move to help farmers with greater market access through its revamped digital platform, the electronic National Agricultural Market, had experienced glitches and Rajasthan’s market committees reported data mismatches, user identification problems and disruptions in Mandi operations after the old system was shut down, even as the new version was on board. Key takeaways The Union government was forced to roll back its flagship e-NAM 2.0 platform from 163 of Rajasthan’s 173 mandis due to critical operational and technical glitches reported after its November 3 rollout. The new strategy involves running the older, stable e-NAM 1.0 in parallel with e-NAM 2.0 in the 10 pilot mandis to prevent disruptions and provide farmer handholding. The initial shutdown of e-NAM 1.0 resulted in farmers losing access to competitive bids from multiple mandis, forcing them to sell to local traders and possibly receiving lower prices during the peak arrival season. Specific technical errors included incorrect mapping of users to newly created districts, non-visible user profiles and mixing of lots from different mandis in the bidding process. The central objective of e-NAM 2.0, to enable smoother cross-mandi trading through a mandatory unified license, was seriously challenged by the failed initial rollout. E-NAM is one of the government’s flagship digital reforms for agriculture, connecting around 18 million farmers through 1,522 mandis on the platform, out of nearly 7,500 regulated mandis nationwide. The platform aims to improve price discovery, reduce cartel formation and enable farmers to sell outside their local mandis, thereby helping them secure better returns and increase their income. “Farmers have now been allowed to work through e-NAM, which was completely discontinued after the launch of e-NAM 2.0 on November 3,” said Raghunath Ram, secretary, Krishi Upaj Mandi Samiti, Nagaur, Rajasthan. The transition disrupted the sale of produce, and as a result, farmers had no choice but to sell their agricultural goods at the physical mandi. “They lost access to competitive bids from various mandis and had to rely only on the traders who were present locally on that day, which reduced competition and could lead to lower prices,” he said. Nagaur is one of the mandis that sees huge arrivals of major cash crops, especially spices like cumin (jeera) and fennel seeds (saunf). In Nagaur mandi, located in the west of the state, peak arrivals also include green gram (moong), cluster bean (guar) and moth bean. This will help farmers adapt to the new version without any disruption in selling their crops, Ram said, adding that the government’s decision is timely as the arrival season is at its peak. Increase farmers’ access “Allowing farmers to move back to e-NAM 1.0 is a practical step because the sudden rollout of e-NAM 2.0 has disrupted on-ground sales,” Dharmendra Malik, national spokesperson Bhartiya Kisan Union (Arajnaitik). With both systems running in tandem for now, farmers can continue to receive fair prices while they gradually get used to the new platform, he added. The rollout of the e-NAM 2.0 pilot began on November 3 across all 173 mandis in Rajasthan, following the selection of Akal Information System Ltd as the technology partner through a competitive tender process. The contract, worth over ₹25 crore for four years, is extendable for four years. In a written reply in the Rajya Sabha on July 25, Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Ramnath Thakur said that 1.79 crore farmers, 2.67 lakh traders and 4,518 Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) were registered on the e-NAM platform as of June 30 and 30 million agricultural products. traded on the portal. Get all the industry news, banking news and updates on Live Mint. Download the Mint News app to get daily market updates. more topics #agriculture #trade Read next story