E&Y transaction advisor for national agri-market project.

The central government's plan for integrating the thousands of agriculture wholesale markets has taken another step.

Small Farmers’ Agri-Business Consortium (SFAC), the lead agency, has appointed EY to be the transaction advisor. And, plans to soon invite bids for a strategic partner in preparing and running the proposed electronic trading platform.

There are a little over 6,000 mandis or Agriculture Produce Market Committees in the country, catering to their respective jurisdictions; farmers in that area can sell their produce only in that mandi. The Centre, after having identified 585 major mandis, plans to electronically link these, to enable one national price and better return for farmers.

SFAC is implementing this. “We will appoint one strategic partner and plan to launch the platform before the end of the current financial year,” said an SFAC official.

The Karnataka government has already integrated its mandis. Andhra and Gujarat are in the process of doing so. The Centre's project and state-level linkages of mandis can run parallely.

“It is up to the respective states to decide whether they want to go with the national project or have a state-level electronic market and link that with the national project,” said the SFAC official.

BS