Union Minister of Food Processing Industries, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, launched the– Market Intelligence and Early Warning System (MIEWS) Web Portal here today. The portal can be accessed at http://miews.nafed-india.com.
Addressing the media during the event, the Minister said that the MIEWS Dashboard and Portal is a ‘first-of-its-kind’ platform for ‘real time monitoring’ of prices of tomato, onion and potato (TOP) and for simultaneously generating alerts for intervention under the terms of the Operation Greens(OG) scheme. The portal would disseminate all relevant information related to TOP crops such as Prices and Arrivals, Area, Yield and Production, Imports and Exports, Crop Calendars, Crop Agronomy, etc in an easy to use visual format.
As per the terms of the OG Scheme, during a glut situation, evacuation of surplus production from producing areas to consumption centres will be undertaken as determined by the following:
- When the prices fall below preceding 3 years’ average market price at the time of harvest;
- When the prices fall more than 50% compared to last year’s market price at the time of harvest;
- When the prices fall less than the benchmark, if any, fixed by the State / Central Government for a specified period.
The Minister said that the MIEWS system is designed to provide advisories to farmers to avoid cyclical production as well as an early warning in situations of gluts. For decision makers, the MIEWS system will help in
- monitoring of supply situation for timely market intervention,
- assist in rapid response in times of glut to move produce from glut regions to deficit/consuming regions and
- providing inputs for export/import decision making.
The salient features of the MIEWS portal include:
- A dashboard that would indicate low price and high price alerts as well as price forecasts for 3 month forward
- Prices and arrivals of TOP crops across the country including interactive charts and comparisons with previous seasons
- Area, Yield and Production of TOP crops
- Crop Agronomy and Trade Profile of each of the TOP crops
- Regular and special reports on the market situation of the TOP crops. The portal will have public and private sections into which the aforementioned features would be divided. Sections like Prices and arrivals, Area, yield and production, Crop Agronomy and Trade Profile would be accessible to the public while the regular and special market intelligence reports and price forecasts would be accessible only to the policy makers.
This portal is a novel initiative of MoFPI leveraging IT tools and furthering the goals of Digital India. Previously, the Ministry has been credited for streamlining the entire project application, implementation & evaluation process online through its Sampada portal & Dashboard. MoFPI has recently received accolades from the, Ministry of Personnel, Public grievances & Pensions, Government of India for effectively implementing e-Office.
The initiative of MoFPI is expected to leverage the strengths of IT in real time monitoring and timely responding to any exigency on account of supply side irregularity or constraints in respect of these three crops. If successful, this model can be further expanded and emulated by other concerned departments/Ministries of Government of India.
OPERATION GREENS SCHEME
In the budget speech of Union Budget 2018-19, a new Scheme “Operation Greens” was announced on the line of “Operation Flood”, with an outlay of Rs.500 crores to promote Farmer Producers Organizations (FPOs), agri-logistics, processing facilities and professional management. Accordingly, the Ministry has formulated a scheme for integrated development of Tomato, Onion and Potato (TOP) value chain.
