On April 13, 2021, the e-SANTA platform, developed by the National Centre for Sustainable Aquaculture (NaCSA), was launched by the Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal for marine products. As per the minister, the use of modern tools and techniques can help increase shrimp production to 6–7 lakh tonnes from 40,000 tonnes. The platform would provide more freedom, options, and opportunities to fish and aqua farmers to ensure fair prices and traceability to both buyers and sellers. There are about 18,000 farmers in the country who are engaged in the marine exports of India. It has also been suggested by the minister that the portal should have a rating system for both the sellers and buyers so that one can see and take the decisions accordingly.
Objective
To bridge aqua farmers and buyers to interact directly and buy the produce, eliminating the middle man completely, and to empower farmers to do spot as well as forward sales.
Salient Features of the Portal
Some of the salient features of the portal are as follows:
- eSANTA (meaning mandi or market) platform will help in empowering the farmers with digital solutions along with an alternative way of selling their products.
- It will provide services like easy registration, details of buyers and sellers as well as help expand the business and ensure better prices to farmers.
- It will provide more opportunities, freedom, and options to the fish and aqua farmers and will ensure fair prices and traceability to both sellers and buyers.
- It will help in changing the traditional way of business from a word-of-mouth basis to a business that is more legally binding.
- It will raise the income and lives of the farmers by creating awareness of products and markets, reducing risks, and shielding against the wrong practices.
- It will provide services like easy registration, details of sellers and buyers and will help in expanding the business.
- It will provide a cashless, paperless, and contactless electronic trade platform between the farmers, domestic markets, and exporters.
- It will be available in different languages like English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Odia, and Bengali, and will also be available in other languages soon.
National Centre for Sustainable Aquaculture (NaCSA) is an extension arm of Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA), Government of India, Ministry of Commerce & Industry. Its objectives are to encourage and uplift the small and marginal farmers through organisation of clusters and maintaining best management practices in shrimp culture. The cluster approach to shrimp farming enables participating farmers to organise the schedule of farm operations, quality seed procurement, simultaneous stocking, water exchange and harvesting regimes contributing to substantial reduction in cost of production, and also prevention of vertical and intra cluster transmission of disease. The aqua societies ensure social and environmental responsibility, and food safety. The platform has registered 752 societies in nine coastal states of India comprising 18211 farmers and a total culture area of 16,632 hectares. Currently, it has 620 active societies with 40,000–50,000 tonnes of production on an average/year. The aqua products are generally exported to EU, America, Japan, China & other Asian countries through exporters of our country to get the best value.
More Information: Any farmer or exporter who has already got registered with MPEDA can register in eSanta at https://nacsampeda.org.in/Currently, this platform is for Indian market only, but global registrations will soon be opened up. Since the platform runs completely on an electronic mode, all the payments will be routed to farmers’ bank accounts through administrator. It is flexible to farmers, who can list their crop with estimated quantities and on the harvest date exact quantity will be updated and payments will be adjusted accordingly. If a buyer confirms an order, he will have to pay 25 per cent as advance while the balance amount will have to be paid after the harvest is completed, i.e., T+1 (Transaction Day + 1). NaCSA will hold this fund in its escrow account (a third-party account which holds the asset until the conclusion of a specific event or time) and release the same post verification, typically in 24 hours from the time it receives fund.
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