NCML's Surakshit Mandi

NCML launched the "Surakshit mandi" initiative during April 2020 to help farmers sell their crops by leveraging NCML's network of warehouses spread across the country. This provides a direct platform to Indian farmers to get the right price, timely & affordable credit and ensures a safe and easy transaction. The concept of Surakshit Mandi is derived from Suraksha for everyone's health in the post-harvest value chain, Suraksha for the physical health of the commodity, and Suraksha of the price for the farmer, lender, and customers and the health of all stakeholders.

The initiative focused on facilitating aggregation of farm produce without breaking the protocol of social distancing and helping farmers sell their crops through NCML's e-marketplace viz., mktyard.com. The initiative included a digital token-based queue system; a facility for testing; digital transaction for price discovery, and the digital flow of credit between buyer and lender. NCML's warehouses/silos/cold storages acted as the nodal points for executing the whole process. The advantages of the warehouse to function as a market yard include protection of the unsold produce for the farmers and more participation of traders due to suitably assayed and graded produce. It also offers the benefit of easy and safe access to the market and secure and timely payment for farmers.

The government has brought in major reforms, and this shall provide the necessary impetus for further promoting and enhancing the footprints of 'Surakshit Mandi.' Going forward, Surakshit Mandi will be implemented across all major agricultural states providing a user-friendly IT system that is seamlessly integrated with farmers, buyers, logistics service providers, and payment systems. The system has seamless integration starting from farmers giving their intention to bring the produce for sale to payment and settlement until the commodity is shipped to the buyer. NCML aims to create an alternate and innovative supply chain where most Agri product warehouses will engage with farmers, FPOs, and Farm-level aggregators for all their needs.