Bhubaneswar: Union Petroleum & Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has urged Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh for linkage of all 66 Regulated Market Committees (RMCs) of Odisha with e-NAM (National Agriculture Market).
In a letter to the Agriculture Minister, Pradhan said that while 10 mandis in Odisha are currently linked with e-NAM, there is an urgent need to link the rest for enhancement of farmers’ income.
“In Odisha, around 60-70% of the population is engaged in agriculture and allied activities in the State. However, the low per-capita income in the farm sector coupled with a declining profitability has harmed the farmers as they continue to lag behind in marketing and processing capabilities.
In this context, it is imperative that both the farmers and related organisations should connect with e-NAM to benefit from absolute farm produce price discovery and achieve the vision of the Government to double farmers’ income by 2022.
Seeing the enthusiasm of farmers to the e-Nam idea, I volunteered to facilitate the vigorous linking of such markets in Odisha with the e-NAM platform,” Pradhan wrote in the letter.
“At present, 10 mandis in Odisha are linked under the e-NAM platform. There is an urgent need to link all the 66 Regulated Market Committees (RMCs) functioning under the supervision and control of the Odisha State Agricultural Marketing Board (OSAMB) under the e-NAM platform. This is especially important as the majority of the Regulated Market Committees in Odisha have inadequate facilities and sufficiently developed infrastructure. Such an initiative shall go a long way in ameliorating farmers’ woes, help in correlation of farmer produce with markets and facilitate enhancement of farmer income,” he wrote.
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