The Dalwai Committee on Doubling Farmers’ Income has pointed out that the share of farmers in consumer’s price is very low; it generally varies from 15 to 40 per cent. Studies conducted by the International Food Policy Research Institute and World Bank have confirmed this. The dominant role of middlemen among others is primarily responsible for farmers not realising a reasonable price for their produce, lowering farm income and profitability. This was recognised by the 12th Plan’s Working Group on Agriculture Marketing (2011).
The agriculture markets are crowded with middlemen and commission agents. As pointed out by Ramesh Chand, in Punjab, there are as many as 22,000 commission agents and innumerable middlemen in each market. According to Ashok Gulati, former chairman of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices, commission agents in Delhi charge exorbitant fees ranging from 6 per cent to 15 per cent.
As per the Dalwai Committee Report 2017-18, there are close to 29,547 marketing points. Of these, 22% or 6,615, are regulated markets under the APMC and 22,932 are regional periodical markets (RPMs).
Out of these 6,615 markets, the NAM scheme aimed to bring 585 markets (i.e. 9%) on its e-market platform by the end of financial year 2017-18. As on March 2018, all targeted mandis, i.e., 585 that are in 16 states and 2 UTs, (Chandigarh and Puducherry), have been integrated with the NAM-platform.
But, these 585 mandis brought only 90.5 lakh farmers onto the platform, which is less than 7% of the 14 crore Indian farmers.
But, the value is only about 2% of India’s total value of agricultural output.
As per the Department of agriculture cooperation and farmers welfare, most of the reported transactions are intra-mandi. Inter-mandi and inter-state trading on the platform are minimal.
What this means is that the states on e-NAM have not been able to provide farmers with better price discovery in other mandis of the same state or across states. The department also acknowledges that e-payment facility is not available in most mandis, and that there is no competitive bidding reported in these states.
Wisdom IAS 
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