One Nation One Market: Govt ties up with ICICI Bank to enable digital payments on e-NAM

To revolutionise agri markets and bring transparency, Indian Government has tied up with private lender ICICI Bank to enable online payments at 470 mandis integrated with the national portal of electronic National Agriculture Market (e-NAM).

The private sector Bank will enable BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money) and Unified Payments Interface (UPI) on the e-NAM portal for making cashless payments. The effort is to provide seamless experience for making online payment of trade and services undertaken on the e-NAM platform.

At present, e-NAM participants are doing payments through traditional ways via bank branches, debit cards and net banking.

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Agriculture marketing is administered by the States as per their agri-marketing regulations, which is divided into several market areas. It is administered by a separate Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) which imposes its own marketing regulation (including fees).

e-NAM addresses these challenges by creating a unified market through online trading platform, both, at State and National level. It also promotes uniformity, streamlining of procedures across the integrated markets, removes information asymmetry between buyers and sellers and promotes real-time price discovery, based on actual demand and supply.

At present, 470 mandis across 14 states are live and 90 commodities are being traded on e-NAM platform, while the target is to connect 585 mandis with e-NAM by March 2018, reported TOI.

In the first phase, farmers are trading agri-produce via e-NAM portal within a mandi though the government’s aim is to allow e-trading between mandis within the state and later between mandis of two states.

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Last month, Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar launched a mobile application 'Jai Kisaan App', aimed at providing knowledge as well as "actionable information" to farmers, developed by a business conglomerate.

The application is a one-stop solution for agri information and cultivation, covering crop nutrition, protection, seeds, and diagnostic services.

In order to boost ease of doing business and agriculture economy of the country, NITI Aayog is building IndiaChain, a blockchain network. IndiaChain will be linked to IndiaStack, a set of code developed around India’s unique identity project Aadhar.