The Khammam Agricultural Market Yard after facing initial hiccups owing to resistance from a section of traders, launched an online electronic trading platform of cotton under the e-National Agricultural Market (e-NAM) which began on Wednesday.

In all 12,457 bags of cotton belonging to 5,625 farmers were traded through e-NAM platform on Wednesday under tight security arrangements at the market yard to ensure smooth conduct of the e-trading.

The online initiative is intended to free farmers from the menace of middlemen and enable them secure fair prices for their agriculture produce in a transparent manner.

However, it initially met with opposition from certain quarters due to misconceptions over the electronic system.

The officials concerned held a series of meetings with the farmers, traders and hamalis under the supervision of Joint Collector Vinay Krishna Reddy to sensitize them on the benefits of the e-NAM in the past couple of weeks.

The Khammam market yard officials have drawn up plans to introduce the electronic trading system under the e-NAM for red chillies also very soon.

The Agriculture Market Committee sources said that the e-NAM facility was introduced in trading of green gram, red gram and maize in the market yard recently.