Economy

The India Cellular And Electronics Association (ICEA) on Friday welcomed the governments decision to let the IT manufacturing units including mobile phones resume operations from May 4. In a statement, the ICEA said the new MHA notification has clearly defined the hotspots, red, orange and green zones and explicitly clarified the permitted economic activities in Red Zones.

Direct tax collection recorded a healthy growth in April despite the nationwide lockdown and grew by 36.6%.

About 20-25% of the farming community hasn’t opted for the moratorium on loan repayments announced by Reserve Bank of India, according to finance companies. Executives ET spoke with at lenders such as Cholamandalam, Mahindra Finance, HDFC Bank and L&T Finance said they were witnessing better collections at their rural branches than in urban centres.

In present situation of COVID 19, farmers are looking for help in their harvest reaching the market, seed/ fertilizer procurement, etc. A robust supply chain management is urgently required to facilitate the timely delivery of the produce at the best possible prices.

The Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Shri Narendra Singh Tomar has stated that by May 2020 there will be around one thousand Mandis joining the e-NAM platform for marketing of Agricultural produce. He was speaking at a function in Krishi Bhawan today where 200 new mandis were added to the e-NAM platform from 7 States. The Minister also witnessed via video conference live trading between mandis from Kurnool and Hubli in groundnuts and maize. He said the Prime minister’s vision of using technology for the benefit of farmers will soon be realised.

The 200 markets integrated with the e-NAM platform today are as follows: Andhra Pradesh (11 mandis), Gujarat (25 mandis), Odisha (16 mandis), Rajasthan (94 mandis), Tamil Nadu (27 mandis), Uttar Pradesh (25 mandis) & Karnataka (02 mandis). This will bring the total e-NAM mandis in the country to 785. This is the first milestone achieved in the path of integrating 415 new markets across the country. It is for the first time that Karnataka State has been added to the list of e-NAM States.

With the aim to reach the last mile farmer & transform the way they sell their agri produce, e-NAM has gained more strength today by reaching out to more farmers & traders of these new mandis. Already 585 mandis in 16 States and 02 Union Territories have been integrated and are working.

e-NAM is also integrated from today with the Unified Market Platform (UMP) of Karnataka’s Rashtriya e-Market Services (ReMS), an e-trading platform promoted by the Karnataka State Agriculture Marketing Board. This will facilitate traders across both the platforms to execute seamless trading in both the platforms by using Single Sign On framework.

This is for the first time in India that two different e-trading platforms for Agri commodities of this scale will be made interoperable. This will help farmers of Karnataka to sell their produce to large number of traders registered with e-NAM and even farmers from e-NAM mandis in other States will be able to sell their produce to Karnataka traders who are enrolled with ReMS platform of Karnataka. This will also promote inter-State trade between the States on-boarded on e-NAM platform & Karnataka.

e-NAM has come a long way with 1.66 Crore Farmers & 1.28 lakh traders having been registered on e-NAM platform. As of 30th April 2020, total trade volume of 3.41 Crore MT & 37 Lakh numbers (Bamboo & Coconut) collectively worth approximately Rs. 1.0 lakh crore have been recorded on e-NAM platform. A path-breaking and revolutionary concept in Agri-sector, the e-NAM online platform has proven to be a giant leap in reforming the agriculture market in India.

e-NAM facilitates trade beyond mandi/ state borders. A total of 233 mandis have participated in inter- mandi trade within 12 States, whereas 13 States/UTs have participated in the inter-state trading on e-NAM platform allowing farmers to interact directly with distantly located traders. At present, more than 1,000 FPOs have been on-boarded on e-NAM platform.

In addition, Ministry launched two major modules in e-NAM last month to deal with the COVID-19 situation so that famers can sell their produce without bringing them to mandi. These modules are: FPO module helping farmer members of FPO to trade from their collection center and other being warehouse module whereby farmers can sell their stored produce in WDRA registered warehouses, declared as deemed mandi by States. In addition, Ministry has launched recently the “Kisan Rath” mobile App which is helping farmers in finding a suitable transport vehicles/tractor to carry their produce to nearby mandi and warehouse etc.

The Ministers of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Shri Parshottan Rupala and Shri Kailash Choudhary, Secretary (AC&FW), Shri Sanjay Agarwal, and senior officers of the Ministry participated in today’s programme held through VC.

The Eight Core Industries comprise 40.27 per cent of the weight of items included in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP). The combined Index of Eight Core Industries stood at 137.0 in March, 2020, which declinedby 6.5per centas compared to the index of March,2019. Its cumulative growth during April to March, 2019-20was 0.6per cent.

From 285.20 million tonnes in 2018-19, this FY the estimated foodgrain production is set to reach 291.95 million tonnes and for the next fiscal a target of 298.3 million tonnes is fixed. He said protein revolution was achieved through increase in production of pulses of 28.3%,

India could emerge as an alternative investment destination for US companies doing business in China in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, a view that the US government’s Department of State is supporting.