In an interview to Krishnamurthy Ramasubbu, joint managing director of the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) Lamon Rutten talks about the power of information and, MCX’s efforts and the motivation behind the recent work in delivering price information to farmers. He also categorically states that government intervention in markets is undesirable. Excerpts:

• What are the rural initiatives undertaken by MCX?

MCX has quite a range of initiatives; the aim is to find a sustainable way to reach to as many farmers as possible. We have tie-ups with India Posts, TERI, MSSRF and others. The TERI project for example, involved the installation of trading terminals in isolated areas. So far we have covered two villages under this project.

• How many terminals and price tickers are there around the country?

There are about 30,000 trading terminals and a few thousand more in rural market areas. At present, we do not have a target for putting up price tickers, but we expect to be present in most of the markets in the country.

• What is the installation cost of price tickers in rural areas?

It varies from place to place, depending upon the available infrastructure. Recently, we spent about 2.75 lakh on each price ticker. Though, in a large number of cases we piggyback on existing infrastructure.

Why do you want farmers to ‘discover’ prices from price tickers? How does it matter to you whether farmers are getting a better price or not?

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