New Delhi: The agriculture ministry has made Aadhaar authentication mandatory for individuals and farmer groups seeking to avail benefits under the e-NAM (National Agriculture Market) scheme.
According to the ministry, the move is aimed at improving transparency, efficiency and service delivery in the agri-marketing ecosystem. Around, 17.9 million farmers and over 4,400 farmer producer organizations (FPOs) are registered with e-NAM.
The government expects the integration of Aadhaar with the e-NAM scheme to accelerate digital adoption in mandis and make market transactions more secure and accountable.
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While authentication is mandatory, those without Aadhaar can still receive benefits by furnishing enrolment proof and a government-issued ID, such as a voter card, ration card, passport or school certificate, until their Aadhaar number is issued.
In a notification issued on Monday, the ministry said that beneficiaries—individual farmers and FPOs—must either furnish proof of Aadhaar or enrol themselves to receive financial assistance for mandi infrastructure under the e-NAM platform.
“It’s a good step. I think the government motive is to weed out unscrupulous elements in the system so only the genuine farmer gets the benefit,” said Praveen Sharma, a farmer from Solan district in Himachal Pradesh.
The step follows a larger government push to integrate welfare schemes with the Aadhaar system to avoid duplication and ensure targeted benefit transfer.
“I don’t think so there is any harm in making Aadhaar authentication mandatory for individuals and farmer groups. Everywhere Aadhaar is linked, so it hardly makes difference if it is linked to the e-NAM portal,” said Rajnish Chaudhary, chairman of the State Anaj Mandi Arhtiya Association, Haryana.
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The e-NAM scheme, which seeks to create a unified national market for agricultural commodities, provides one-time fixed grants of up to ₹75 lakh per mandi for setting up hardware, assaying labs, cleaning and grading units, packaging facilities and composting infrastructure.
Currently, ₹30 lakh is allocated upfront per mandi for information and communication technology equipment and Internet, while ₹40 lakh is sanctioned for processing and packaging infrastructure, and ₹5 lakh for composting. There are 1,473 markets that are linked to the e-NAM network from 23 states and 4 Union territories.
According to the agriculture ministry, if biometric authentication fails—due to poor fingerprint or iris scans—offline verification methods such as QR code scanning or paperless e-KYC will be permitted to establish identity.
The ministry has also committed to setting up enrolment centres or acting as a registrar itself to facilitate Aadhaar issuance, especially in rural areas.
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Further, officials have been tasked with verifying the validity of enrolment IDs and related documents on Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) portals. Detailed audit trails will be maintained where benefits are extended under exception handling mechanisms to ensure compliance.
The notification aligns with a broader shift towards using digital identity frameworks to monitor utilization of government funds, especially as the Centre looks to expand secondary trading, warehouse-linked sales and inter-state agricommerce via the e-NAM platform.