PIB Trackere-NAM crosses 1,656 mandis since 2016
The national online agri-trading platform now links 1,656 wholesale mandis across 23 states and 4 UTs, with cumulative trade of Rs 4.82 lakh crore.
What happened
- The Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare told the Lok Sabha that the National Agriculture Market (e-NAM), running since 2016, has now integrated 1,656 mandis drawn from 23 States and 4 Union Territories.
- As on 28 February 2026, 1.80 crore farmers and 2.72 lakh traders stand registered on the platform, alongside 4,724 Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs).
- Cumulative trade since the platform began, up to February 2026, is 13.22 crore metric tonnes of produce valued at Rs 4,82,350 crore.
- The government provides grant assistance of up to Rs 75 lakh per mandi for marketing and allied infrastructure that enables a market to join the network.
- 134 e-NAM mandis in Rajasthan now use AI/ML machines for quality assaying of produce, a quiet shift toward technology-graded, not eyeball-graded, trade.
- The reply was given by Minister of State Shri Bhagirath Choudhary, with annexures carrying state-wise figures for mandis, farmers, volume, value and funds released.
Background & context
e-NAM stands for the electronic National Agriculture Market. It is a pan-India electronic trading portal that networks the existing physical wholesale markets — the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) mandis — into one virtual national market for farm produce. It was launched on 14 April 2016 by the Prime Minister, and the date is chosen to coincide with Ambedkar Jayanti. The platform does not replace the physical mandi; it sits on top of it, digitising the auction, payment and assaying so that a trader sitting in one State can bid for a lot lying in another.
The scheme is a Central Sector Scheme — fully funded by the Union government — administered by the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare. Its day-to-day operation runs through the Small Farmers' Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC), a body under the same Department, which acts as the lead implementing agency. This is an important distinction for the exam: because e-NAM is a Central Sector Scheme, the Centre bears the full cost of the software, hardware and assaying support, unlike a Centrally Sponsored Scheme where the States share the burden. The grant of up to Rs 75 lakh per mandi flows under this central-sector funding.
e-NAM sits in a wider family of farm-marketing reforms. Agricultural marketing in India is a State subject; markets are regulated by State APMC Acts, which traditionally compelled farmers to sell only through the licensed mandi of their notified area. e-NAM was conceived to soften the fragmentation that this State-by-State regulation created — a farmer in one mandi could not legally reach a buyer in the next district, let alone the next State. To onboard, a State first has to amend its own APMC Act to permit three enabling reforms: a single unified trading licence valid across the State, a single point levy of market fee, and electronic auction as a mode of price discovery. Only then can its mandis plug into the national portal. This is why e-NAM's spread is uneven across the country, and why some large agrarian States joined late or remain partial.
The release also flags a sibling milestone announced the same day: the Central Sector Scheme for Formation and Promotion of 10,000 FPOs has now registered its full 10,000 Farmer Producer Organisations, of which 1,175 are 100% women-member FPOs covering 23.55 lakh women farmers. FPOs and e-NAM are designed to work together — an FPO aggregates the small lots of many smallholders into a saleable volume, and e-NAM gives that aggregated lot a national set of buyers, improving the price the group can command. The 4,724 FPOs already on e-NAM are the overlap between the two programmes.
It also helps to place the numbers against the long arc of the scheme. e-NAM began in April 2016 with a target of integrating an initial set of regulated wholesale markets, and was expanded in phases; the figure of 1,656 mandis reported here is the cumulative count reached after roughly a decade. The scale of registration — 1.80 crore farmers — should be read carefully for the exam: registration is not the same as active, regular trading, and the cumulative trade value of Rs 4,82,350 crore is measured since inception in 2016, not for a single year. This is exactly the kind of distinction the "consider the following statements" pattern probes, so a careful reading keeps the source-anchored number tied to its correct denominator (cumulative, since 2016, up to February 2026).
For Prelims
- Full form: e-NAM = electronic National Agriculture Market; a pan-India electronic trading portal networking APMC wholesale mandis.
- Launch: 14 April 2016, by the Prime Minister; a Central Sector Scheme (100% Union-funded).
- Nodal chain: Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare → implemented by the Small Farmers' Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC).
- Coverage (28 Feb 2026): 1,656 mandis · 23 States · 4 UTs · 1.80 crore farmers · 2.72 lakh traders · 4,724 FPOs.
- Cumulative trade: 13.22 crore metric tonnes worth Rs 4,82,350 crore since 2016.
- Funding hook: grant assistance of up to Rs 75 lakh per mandi for marketing and allied infrastructure.
- Onboarding precondition: the State must amend its APMC Act to allow a single State-wide trading licence, single-point market fee, and e-auction.
- Tech layer: quality assaying — including AI/ML grading machines (134 mandis in Rajasthan) — so produce is bid on by graded parameters, not by sight.
- What it is NOT: e-NAM is not a Centrally Sponsored Scheme (it is Central Sector, fully Union-funded); it does not abolish or replace the physical APMC mandi (it digitises it); it is not a minimum-support-price or procurement programme (MSP procurement runs separately through FCI/NAFED); and it is not run by NABARD (FPO formation involves NABARD/NCDC/SFAC, but e-NAM itself is operated by SFAC). It is also distinct from Gramin Agricultural Markets (GrAMs), the rural haats being upgraded under a separate push.
The comparative set — farm-marketing instruments to keep straight: e-NAM (online inter-mandi trading) · APMC mandi (the physical regulated market, a State subject) · Gramin Agricultural Markets / GrAMs (rural retail haats) · the Central Sector Scheme for 10,000 FPOs (aggregation) · MSP procurement via FCI and NAFED (price support) · the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (post-harvest assets). A favourite exam trap is to pair e-NAM with MSP or to call it Centrally Sponsored — both are wrong.
Why it matters
The problem e-NAM addresses is the long-standing fragmentation of India's agricultural markets. Because marketing is a State subject regulated mandi by mandi, a farmer historically faced a thin, local set of buyers — often a small ring of licensed traders in one notified market — which depressed prices and bred collusion. By moving price discovery onto a national electronic auction, e-NAM widens the buyer pool, makes bids visible, and lets produce in a surplus region find demand in a deficit region. The reported figures — 1.80 crore farmers, 4,724 FPOs and Rs 4.82 lakh crore of cumulative trade — are the scale evidence that the network has moved from pilot to a working national layer over its decade of operation.
The Rajasthan AI/ML assaying detail matters more than it looks. The credibility of any online auction rests on the buyer trusting the quality grade of a lot they cannot physically inspect; machine-based assaying replaces subjective, eyeball grading with measurable parameters, which is what makes remote bidding safe. e-NAM's value is therefore not only the software but the assaying and the FPO aggregation that sit underneath it. At the same time, the uneven, State-by-State onboarding — gated on each State amending its APMC Act — is the candid limit on how far the single national market has actually been realised, and it is the gap a Mains answer should name.
There is also a structural reason e-NAM matters for the small farmer specifically. India's agriculture is dominated by smallholders, the majority of whom operate marginal and small holdings; for them the cost of carrying produce to a distant market is high and the bargaining power in a local mandi is low. A national electronic market lowers the search cost of finding a better-paying buyer and, when combined with the per-mandi infrastructure grant, funds the cleaning, grading, weighing and storage that let a small lot meet a distant buyer's standard. The Rs 75 lakh grant is therefore not incidental; it is the mechanism by which a physical mandi is made e-NAM-ready. Read alongside the FPO scheme, the policy logic is aggregation plus market access plus graded quality — the three things a smallholder lacks on her own.