NSEAP, MCX launch info kiosks

The National Spot Exchange for Agriculture Produce (NSEAP) and Multi Commodity Exchange of India (MCX) have launched Commodity Suchna Kendra (CSK), a knowledge centre of spot and futures commodities market price and information on various products, at Sirsa market in Haryana. It was inaugurated by Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda.

The Sirsa AMPC is the first agro-commodity market to go live with the electronic price and information dissemination system in northern India.

The new kendra would display not only spot and futures commodity prices but also the country's first composite commodity futures index, MCX-Comdex, on a real-time basis.

In line with Sirsa, NSEAP plans to set up similar kendras at all APMC markets that, over time, will link all agriculture market players. It will also help in linking the support infrastructure from a single point access, thus benefiting farmers, traders, consumers and other end-users of commodities.

Disseminating reference national-spot prices on a real-time basis and will serve as an instrument for common price discovery.

"This is a unique initiative to create a nationwide awareness for enabling buyers and sellers to trade agriculture commodities electronically. Online networking of producers and consumers of agriculture commodities would help in creating a common nationwide market. In the long run it will enable and empower the farmers to sell their produce at better rates and directly use the intermediary network of NSEAP," Hooda said.

"Currently, the price discovery in the spot market is distorted and dominated by local fundamentals. Farmers are penalised and exploited owing to lack of nationwide spot price discovery and dissemination mechanism. NSEAP has pioneered the initiative to link the APMC markets electronically, in phases, to create a 'common Indian market' as envisioned by the government," he added.

"Linking all APMCs will lead to the development of a competitive, and efficient agro-marketing chain in Haryana and subsequently, across India,"," said Jignesh Shah, MD, MCX.

NSEAP will enable agro-based industries procure agriculture produce at cheaper cost with complete assurance using the support infrastructure of NSEAP. This network will ultimately create a robust common Indian market," said Jignesh Shah, managing director, MCX.

This is the first phase of implementation where NSEAP is inter-linking all key APMC markets electronically. This electronic platform will disseminate real time spot and futures prices to the traders in these markets.

Subsequently it will expand to include the complete ecosystem integration. In the second stage, the network established by NSEAP and MCX, will be used by farmers, co-operatives and intermediaries in the APMCs for trading in commodities.

Commodity specific grades, quality standards and delivery and settlement mechanism will be laid down by NSEAP. The NSEAP initiative will integrate fragmented markets, create a new distribution channel for procurement and sale, enhance consumer-producer interaction and finally integrate rural India.