Payments issue stalls transactions at chilli yard

     Trading at Asia’s biggest chilli yard was stalled on Thursday after traders refused to credit money to the accounts of the farmers directly under the newly adapted eNam system. Irate farmers laid siege to the Guntur-Chilakaluripet highway disrupting traffic for more than two hours. The marketing officials pacified them.

Ever since the Electronic National Agricultural Marketing (e-nam) trading has been introduced, traders and commission agents have been reluctant to make the payments online to the accounts of the farmers. The farmers on the other hand are caught in the cross fire and spending anxious moments due to delay in the payments.

Successive rounds of talks between the traders and the commission agents on one side and the marketing department officials on the other side did not yield any results. Commissioner of marketing Samuel Anand Kumar had even warned of cancelling the licences of the commission agents but the latter continued to defy the powers.

The electronic trading portal networks the market committees to create a national market for chilli, pulses and turmeric.

It also provides a single-window service for all related information and services, including commodity arrivals and prices, buying and selling trade offers and provision to respond to trade offers.

Chairman, AMC, Mannava Subba Rao, said the e-nam would be implemented at any cost and warned the commission agents against disrupting the smooth functioning of the system, which had been designed to do away with middlemen.