e-SANTA portal : to connect aqua farmers and exporters
Recently, the Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry has launched an electronic marketplace (e-SANTA) to provide a platform aimed at connecting aqua farmers and buyers.
Electronic Marketplace, “e- SANTA”
- e- SANTA is a web portal for water farmers and their buyers, which means, “Electronic Solution for Augmenting NaCSA Farmers’ Trade in Aquaculture ”.
- This water will bring farmers and buyers on one platform, so that exporters will be able to buy quality products directly from farmers.
- The main objective of e-SANTA portal is to provide better prices of their products to the water farmers, and this portal is also available in many languages, which will help the local population.
- It may be noted that the “National Center for Sustainable Aquaculture – NaCSA”, is a branch of the “Marine Products Export Development Authority – MPEDA”, under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India.
Significance:
- e-SANTA will provide an option to the country’s aqua farmers to become self-sufficient by improving the income, lifestyle and quality level of the products.
- This portal will make the business more formal and legally binding, eliminating the traditional way of doing business through oral means.
- e-Santa will improve the life and income of aqua farmers in the following ways:
- Reducing Risk
- Awareness of Products & Markets
- Increase in Income
- Shielding Against Wrong/unfair Practice
- Ease of Processes
- This will enable farmers and buyers to have more control over the trade, and will help them to take beneficial decisions.
- It will revolutionize traditional aquaculture by providing a cashless, contactless and paperless technical trading platform between farmers and exporters.
- e- Santa can be a means of bringing together fishermen and fisheries producing organizations collectively buying products.
- The portal could also become an auction platform in the future, as it would provide an opportunity for people to obtain information about the availability of products at the national and international levels.
- e- Santa will serve as an alternative marketing tool between farmers and buyers by eliminating middlemen.
Source – PIB
