Talking to Indian Cooperative Nafed MD Managing Director Sanjeev Chadha unveiled his plan to help farmers reach out to their right buyers on a large scale. Chadha gave details of initiatives undertaken by the agri giant for the purpose.
One of the main ways it is already being done by Nafed is setting up a large number of e-Kisan Mandis in different parts of the country, said the MD. “For this, Nafed has recently partnered with Maharashtra Farmers Producer Co (MahaFPC) to launch an online mandi for trading agricultural commodities”, he informed.
Nafed has recently opened e-Kisan Mandi at Gultekdi, Pune and will open 20 more Mandis in the coming two months. The idea is to open 100 such mandis across the country and expect a turnover of Rs 100 crore annually from each mandi, said Nafed Managing Director Sanjeev Chadha to this correspondent on the phone.
Giving more details Chadha said, “Recently Government of India allowed farmers to sell their produce to anyone and they no longer have to go via APMCs or mandis. At present, 30 FPOs are linked with the newly inaugurated e-Kisan Mandi. It will seek to bring farmers, agri-producers, traders and small buyers on a common platform for trading agricultural commodities”, he said.
“The E-kisan mandi would operate in a hub-and-spoke model, in which the MahaFPC office in Pune will operate as the hub for 50-odd FPCs in and around Pune, and these FPCs will then collect orders from the online platform and provide the service. Buyers or traders can buy the farmers produce according to their needs”, he added.
He further said,” in case, no buyer purchased the produce of farmers online then we are in the process of setting up the warehouses and cold storage at the e-kisan hubs. Besides, we are doing the business of pulses, we have seen that farmers are forced to sell their produce to traders at a cheap rate if it is not clean or there is moisture in the pulse. In order to save the farmers from the exploitations we are in the process of providing value addition facilities for sorting, cleaning, grading and drying”, he asserted.
During the inauguration of e-Kisan Mandi, on behalf of the agri cooperative, MD Sanjeev Chadha and MahaFPC MD Yogesh Thorat carried out the inaugural formalities.
Sharing the news, the social media handle of NAFED wrote, “FIFA in partnership with MAHAFPC inaugurated 1st NAFED e-Kisan Mandi at Gultekadi, Pune in presence of MD NAFED, MD FIFA & MD MAHAFPC.”
This venture is expected to benefit 1.5 lakh farmers of 300 FPOs of Maharashtra. This is the first e-Mandi after new Agricultural Ordinances by GOI.
