11-Feb-2022: Converting Rural Haats into Mini Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee (APMCs)

Physical infrastructure/ facilities under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) have been developed in 1351 village Haats and is under development in 1632 number of village Haats.

As on 31.03.2020, there are 6845 numbers of Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) markets in the country. In order to provide better farmer - market linkages and fair prices to farmers, in addition to regulated markets, there are other markets also like non-regulated wholesale markets, farmer – consumer markets, purchase centers and private wholesale markets. In addition, Government is promoting to declare warehouses and cold storages as deemed market yards to improve the farmer – market linkages.

Further, Government of India had launched reform linked National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) scheme, a virtual platform integrating physical wholesale mandis/ markets of different States/ Union Territories (UTs) to facilitate online trading of agriculture and horticulture commodities to enable farmers to realize better remunerative prices for their produce. All these contribute towards better marketing efficiency and also better prices to farmers. 

So far, based on earlier targets and as per the proposals received from States/ Union Territories (UTs), 1000 mandis of 18 States and 3 UTs have been integrated with e-NAM platform. As on 9th February, 2022, more than 1.72 crore farmers & 2.16 lakh traders have been registered on e-NAM platform. Further agricultural produce trade with a value of Rs. 1.74 lakh crore have so far been recorded on e-NAM platform.

20-Mar-2020: Development of Agricultural Marketing Infrastructure

In Budget announcement 2018-19, Government of India has announced to develop and upgrade existing 22,000 rural haats into Gramin Agricultural Markets (GrAMs). In these GrAMs, physical infrastructure will be strengthened using MGNREGS and other Government Schemes.

Further, the Government has announced to set up of an Agri-Market Infrastructure Fund with a corpus of Rs. 2000 crore for developing and upgrading agricultural marketing infrastructure in the 22000 Gramin Agricultural Markets (GrAMs) and 585 Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMCs).

Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD), Government of India has been developing and up-grading physical infrastructure of rural haats under control of panchayat through States / Union Territories through Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) for development of GrAMs.

Further, in pursuant to the Budget announcement, the Government has approved an Agri-Market Infrastructure Fund (AMIF) with a corpus of Rs. 2000 crore with National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) for developing and upgrading agricultural marketing infrastructure in the GrAMs and Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) Markets and circulated the Scheme Guidelines to the States/Union Territories (UTs). Since it is a demand driven scheme from the States/UTs, there is no State-wise and year-wise allocation of the fund. The Government of India has already requested States/UTs for submission of proposal for seeking assistance under AMIF.