NSEL to set up 20 warehouses in Maharashtra

Mumbai: NCDEX Spot Exchange (NSEL), the Maharashtra State Warehousing Corporation (MSWC) and the National Collateral Management Services, a subsidiary of NCDEX, have signed a memorandum of understanding for creating warehousing infrastructure at 20 locations in Maharashtra. The alliance will also give a boost to on-line trading on NSEL.

The MoU was signed by Mr R. Ramaseshan, Director of NSEL, Mr U.K. Agarwal, Joint Managing Director, MSWC and Mr.Sanjay Kaul, Managing Director, NCMSL.

The MoU will pave way to jointly modernise the operations of mandis under the World Bank-assisted Multi State Agricultural Competitiveness Project (MACP).

The three signatories to the MoU have agreed to work towards providing facilities to farmers and traders for screen-based spot trading in agricultural commodities and other value added services such as storage, grading, packaging. Bank finance will also be made available for the farmers.

Mr Agarwal said, “We will be working together to provide complete post-harvest solutions for farmers”.

Mr.Ramaseshan said, “The arrangement will be beneficial for farmers in Maharashtra as they will realise a better price for their produce by selling on our online spot trading platform. NSEL’s pan- India reach and superior real time price discovery will be a boon for farmers.”

Mr Sanjay Kaul said, “Farmers will no longer be forced to sell their produce at a lower price in the mandi at the time of harvest. Distress sale of their produce will become a thing of the past”.

The World Bank, through the MACP, intends to foster the development of a more competitive marketing system and improve market access for farmers through enhanced knowledge. It aims at upgrading infrastructure and building capacity so that collateral management procedures could help warehouses and mandis to act as integrated hub.