Perishable commodities like fruits, vegetables, flowers and dairy products would now have a nationwide electronic trading platform. National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) has tied up with Financial Technologies Limited, promoters of commodity exchange MCX, to promote a SAFAL National Exchange of India Limited (SNX).

Based at the Safal Market in Bangalore, SNX would be 51-per cent owned by NDDB. Financial Technologies and MCX would hold the balance. The size of investments has not been disclosed.

SNX would be a spot exchange and would not offer trading in futures and other derivatives. The electronic trading platform would provide a national market to producers of such commodities.

NDDB would provide its expertise in post-harvest handling of perishable commodities, organising farmer associations while Financial technologies and MCX will provide the core technology along with the domain expertise and know-how to setup the exchange.

SNX will also provide on-line price dissemination and an efficient warehouse-based delivery system, which will complement the existing efforts in the supply chain management of perishable commodities and reduce wastage. Being a neutral integrated platform, the exchange will benefit not only individual producers, but also farmer associations, co-operatives, corporate houses and other stakeholders.

"SNX is also a major initiative towards realising our vision of integrating rural India with global markets, by unlocking value and driving growth to the last mile of the value chain. The experience of SNX may well lead other industries to adopt similar technology-enabled market infrastructure", Jignesh Shah, chairman and managing director of Financial Technologies said.