NEW DELHI — Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Shri Amit Shah launched NAFEX.in, a state-of-the-art e-auction portal developed by the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd. (NAFED).
The launch took place in the national capital in the presence of Union Agriculture Minister Shri Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Minister of State for Cooperation Shri Krishan Pal Gurjar. The portal headlines a suite of four major tech-driven initiatives—including DRISHTI, ERP systems, and NAFED Kalyan—designed to modernize cooperative marketing, eliminate intermediaries, and establish complete transparency in agrarian procurement.
Direct Benefits and Financial Turnaround
Addressing the gathering, Amit Shah highlighted NAFED’s dramatic financial recovery over the last decade, transitioning from institutional distress to a highly profitable cooperative engine:
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From Closure to Profitability: In 2014, NAFED was on the verge of financial collapse. Following central financial assistance and structural overhauls, the federation today serves more than 74 lakh farmers, boasting an annual turnover of ₹30,000 crore and a net profit of ₹500 crore.
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Targeted Growth: NAFED’s net worth has surged from ₹358 crore to ₹2,050 crore, with leadership projecting the cooperative’s turnover to cross ₹50,000 crore within the next two years.
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Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT): The newly launched NAFEX.in platform is engineered to bypass traditional networks of middlemen. The ministry mandated that farmers’ hard-earned revenues must be credited directly into their bank accounts within 48 hours of procurement.
A Two-Year Blueprint for Pulses Self-Reliance
The Ministry of Cooperation issued a distinct operational target for NAFED and the National Cooperative Consumers’ Federation of India (NCCF) to secure India’s domestic pulse supply chains:
“In the next two years, NCCF and NAFED will move ahead with greater speed to purchase every single grain of pulses directly from farmers. This will guarantee fair, remunerative prices, encourage farmers to expand the total area under pulses cultivation, and make the country entirely self-reliant.” — Shri Amit Shah, Union Minister of Cooperation
To support this deployment, infrastructure for the direct procurement of pulses, maize, and allied crops created over the last three years will be scaled down to the grassroots level. Beyond crop procurement, NAFED has diversified into organic farming, localized seed production, bio-fertilizer manufacturing, and international trade operations.
Corporate Social Responsibility: The NAFED Kalyan Scheme
In a landmark welfare move, NAFED announced that it will structurally earmark 1% of its annual net profits to fund higher education and professional career development pathways for the children of Indian farming families. Dubbed the NAFED Kalyan initiative, this fund aims to alleviate the financial strain on agrarian households looking to enroll their youth in advanced academic institutions.
Tributes to Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee on Balidan Diwas
The Home Minister opened his address by paying solemn tributes to former Union Minister and founder of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee, marking his Balidan Diwas (Martyrdom Day).
Shah chronicled Dr. Mookerjee’s pivotal historic interventions, specifically his resistance during the Partition to ensure West Bengal remained an integral part of India, and his ultimate sacrifice in a Kashmir jail fighting against the dual administrative structures of Article 370. Shah noted that with the absolute abrogation of Article 370, Dr. Mookerjee’s foundational vision of “One Nation, One Constitution, One Head” has been permanently realized.
