Meri Fasal-Mera Byora e-procurement portal

• Haryana e-procurement Push under Meri Fasal-Mera Byora e-procurement portal witnessed a remarkable digital penetration.
• The Portal registered 8.71 lakh or more than 80% of the total farmers in the state in less than 2 years.

Meri Fasal-Mera Byora e-procurement portal

• Launched in April 2020.
• Thanks to the portal, Haryana became the first state where as many as 14 crops were procured at the MSP.
• On this portal, the farmer gets financial assistance to sell his crop, buy fertilizers and seed, get a loan for agricultural equipment - all the while sitting at home,

e-National Agriculture Market (e-NAM)

• e-NAM or the e-trading platform (online trading portal) for the National Agriculture Market (NAM) was launched in April 2016.
• e-NAM is a pan-India electronic trading portal that nets the prevailing Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMC) Mandis for making a united national market for agricultural commodities.
• The e-NAM project operates via the online portal that is linked to the states’ Mandis (Wholesale markets).
• All the participating states are provided the software (Website and Mobile Application) for e-NAM at no cost.

e-NAM portal and Haryana

• To provide an online sale facility, 81 mandis of the state have been linked with the e-NAM portal.
• the government prioritizes the procurement of crops of farmers who have registered on this portal.
• The procurement of bajra by the state government is a good example of how digitisation has helped the state government to smoothen the procurement process.

Salient Features of these portals

Financial Security For Farmers:

• Developed by the IT department of the state government, it ensures that farmers enrol for selling their crops online.
• This eliminates financial disputes when such sales are done offline.

Transparent Crop Procurement:

• After farmers register on the portal, registered buyers can purchase the crops from selected mandis.
• This way, farmers are able to trade their crops at MSP.

Awareness:

• The portal also provides farmers with information about new rates technologies related to farming.

Complaint Redressal:

• Farmers can also register their grievances on the portal.

Assistance & Compensation:

• In case of a climatic or natural disaster, farmers receive compensation and financial assistance through this portal

Subsidy & Loan Facilities:

• Farmers registered on this portal are also offered agricultural products and loan facilities at subsidized rates.

Conclusion

• This turned out to be beneficial to the farmers when they’re receiving a higher price than before on their produce.
• The intermediaries that are responsible for the claiming charges that result in higher market prices are put on trial.
• Larger retail stores benefited from this and attracted to this due to higher profit margins since no intermediaries are involved.