Agri-cooperative major national agricultural cooperative marketing federation (Nafed), the government’s biggest procurement agency for oilseeds and pulses , will launch its e-auction portal – NAFEX.in – for selling agricultural commodities, on Tuesday.
Currently Nafed uses private platforms such as mjunction, NCDEX e Markets – NeML and E-Teach for selling about 5.3 million tonne (MT) of pulses and oilseeds annually from farmers under the price support scheme (PSS) and price stabilisation fund (PSF).
The farmers’ federation will also consider allowing state-level federation of cooperatives and agencies to conduct their e-auction on the portal — Nafex.in— which has been developed in collaboration with consulting firm Deloitte
“The launch of NAFEX.in is an important step towards strengthening transparency, efficiency and ease of operations in the auction process. The portal is expected to provide a digital platform for streamlining auction-related activities and enhancing the overall functioning of NAFED in the interest of farmers, member institutions and stakeholders,” according to a statement by the ministry of cooperation said on Monday.
The portal will be launched in the presence of Cooperation minister Amit Shah and Agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. “We want to have our own portal for e-auction which other agencies can participate in,” Deepak Agarwal, MD, Nafed, had earlier stated.
The other government designated agency – National cooperative consumer’s federation of India (NCCF) also uses these private platforms to carry out e-auction of commodities purchased under PSS and PSF.
These private agencies carry out e-auction of the commodities on behalf of Nafed and NCCF using multiple portals simultanesously while the bidders with highest bids get approval to buy it. These agencies charge 0.03% of total value of commodities traded on the platform from the buyers of the commodities.