Telangana Marketing Department praised by Union agriculture

Hyderabad, July 06: Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh praised the performance of the Telangana Marketing Department in rapidly implementing reforms in agricultural markets in the country.

The Telangana Minister for Marketing and Irrigation T Harish Rao has been informed on Wednesday that 16 more agriculture market yards in Telangana will be extended eNAM (National Agriculture Market), a pan-India electronic trading facility, this year.

Harish Rao said e-NAM trading was already introduced in some 44 agriculture market yards in the State. The Centre would give a grant of Rs 75 lakh to each market yard to acquire necessary hardware and software for implementation of the electronic trading facility. Of the 180 market yards in the State, as many as 60 would have this facility and the rest would be brought under the scheme in a phased manner.

He said e-NAM would facilitate farmers, traders, buyers, exporters and processors with a common platform for trading commodities. It currently links 250 APMCs (Agriculture Produce Marketing Committees) from across 10 States.

The Union Minister commended both Telangana and Chhattisgarh for their splendid job in extending the online trading facility. Others, which were yet to implement this facility, were asked to emulate the two States.

Harish Rao said problems pertaining to its implementation were taken up with the Union Minister who was also apprised of server-related issues and delays in payments to farmers.

He said the State government had taken up construction of 17 lakh tons of godown space at a cost of Rs 1,024 crore. He sought the immediate release of the second installment of this.