Union minister launches portal to help planning and timely intervention for price stabilization of 'TOP' crops

A market intelligence and early warning system to monitor prices of TOP crops was launched by the Union Minister for food processing Harsimrat Kaur Badal today. A fist-of-its-kind platform, the portal will provide real-time monitoring of prices of tomato, onion and potato and for simultaneously generating alerts for intervention.

New Delhi:Union Minister for food processing Harsimrat Kaur Badal launched the market Intelligence and early warning system web portal (MIEWS) on Thursday. Addressing the media during the event, the Minister said that MIEWS dashboard and Portal is a first-of-its-kind platform for real-time monitoring of prices of tomato, onion and potato and for simultaneously generating alerts for intervention.

Under the terms of 'Operation Greens' scheme, the portal would disseminate all the relevant information related to TOP (Tomato, Onion and Potatoes) crops such as prices and arrivals, area, yield and production imports and exports crop, calendars, crop agronomy in an easy-to-use visual format. The system is designed to provide advisories to farmers to avoid cyclic production as well as an early warning in situations of gluts. For decision-makers, the system will help in monitoring of supply situation for timely market intervention. It will also assist in Rapid response in times of glut to move produce from glut regions to deficit for consuming regions and provide input for export-import decision making.

The portal will indicate the low price and high price alerts, as well as price forecasts for three months and the arrival of crops across the country, include interactive charts and comparison with previous seasons.

In the budget speech of Union budget 2018-2019 new scheme called "Operation Greens" was announced on the line of "Operation Flood" with an outlay of Rupees 500 crores to promote farmer producer organisations, agri logistics, processing facilities and professional management. Accordingly, the ministry has formulated a scheme for the integrated development of tomato onion and potato value chain.