Centre's e-forum for Telangana farmers flops with poor internet connectivity
In six months, 39 markets have been added to this platform.
Hyderabad: Telangana state is in the forefront with 44 market yards enrolled for the Centre’s electronic national agriculture market. But all the market yards face technical problems including poor Internet connectivity due to which trading is still done manually.
The e-NAM portal has failed to handle heavy volumes of Kharif farm produce arrivals to markets due to technical glitches.
e-NAM was launched in April to enable farmers to sell their produce to the highest bidders across the country. The ground reality is that except for issuing electronic gate passes to farmers to bring their produce to the markets, no bidding is being conducted online nationally.
Trading continues to be done manually and traders and middlemen call the shots.
The MSP announced by the government remains only on paper and the actual prices drop sharply even before the produce reaches the markets.
e-NAM linked 21 markets across the country, of which five were from Telangana state, at Warangal, Malakpet (Hyderabad), Nizamabad, Badepally (Mahbubnagar) and Tirumalagiri (Nalgonda). In six months, 39 markets have been added to this platform.
With Kharif season over and large quantities of paddy, maize, soya, pulses, chilli, cotton stocks etc. reaching the markets, farmers still continue to suffer at the hands of traders and middlemen as e-NAM is yet to become fully operational.
“The main problem is with the e-NAM server, which is not in a position to handle the huge rush of farmers in 250 markets in 10 states. The system is hit by technical glitches frequently due to which online trading could not be taken up. We have taken up the issue with the Centre, which has promised to resolve the issue soon,” said marketing minister T. Harish Rao.
He said the problem was not confined to Telangana state but was encountered nationwide. There are also Internet connectivity issues in Adilabad, Mahbubnagar, Nalgonda, Medak.
“The existing service providers have been asked to enhance the Internet speed to meet the demand. The government is laying high-speed Internet cables along with the water grid pipeline in all districts. Once this is completed, we can overcome the Internet connectivity issues in rural and remote areas by December 2017,” Mr Rao said.