NeRLplays a crucial role in modernizing India’s agricultural finance infrastructure. By digitizing warehouse receipts, it enables farmers, warehouses, and financial institutions to transact seamlessly and transparently, thus unlocking rural liquidity and streamlining commodity markets at scale.

Set up in February 2017 under NCDEX Group and regulated by WDRA, NeRL is India’s first legally registered electronic commodity repository.It began operations in September 2017after securing official approvals in late 2016.

Promoted by prestigious institutions:

NCDEX(National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange)

NABARD (National Bank for Agriculture & Rural Development)

State Bank of India

ICICI Bank

Together, these form NeRL’s core stakeholder group and give it strong institutional backing.

Purpose & Role

NeRL enables adigital ecosystem for warehouse receipts (eNWRs):

Conversion of paper-based warehouse receipts into secure electronic negotiable warehouse receipts (eNWRs), thus reducing risks like forgery, duplication, and bad delivery.

Functions: creation, storage, transfer, pledge, and e-auction of eNWRs within a regulated framework.

By transforming physical agricultural commodities into digital assets, NeRL improves liquidity access for farmers and supports financial inclusion with better traceability and transparency.

Key Highlights & Impact

NeRL has facilitated over ₹10,000 crores in pledge financingusing eNWRs, formalizing commodity-based lending and enhancing access to post-harvest credit for stakeholders across the agri value chain.

NeRL is often compared to CDSL or NSDL for agri-commodities,offering a regulated digital ledger for eWRs and integrating with the WDRA framework.

Recently, NeRL also garnered attention for equity stakes by prominent individual investors, including Bollywood figures exploring early access to tech-driven infrastructure platforms

INDUSTRY OUTLOOK

1. Growing Importance of Agri-Finance;

India’s agriculture sector employs over40% of the population,but contributes less than20% to GDP.Despite this, access toformal credit remains limited — nearly 30% of small and marginal farmers rely on informal lenders. Thus, modernizing agri-finance infrastructure is crucial to rural development and economic stability.

2. Key Trends and Drivers;

3. Key Stakeholders;

NABARD – Apex refinance and development bank for rural credit.

Banks/NBFCs – Offer Kisan Credit Cards, crop loans, term finance.

Agri Repositories– e.g.,NeRL, CDSL Commodity Repository – digitize collateral.

FinTech/AgriTech Startups – like Samunnati, Jai Kisan, DeHaat – enable micro-lending, credit scoring, and loan disbursement.

4. Policy Push

PMFBY, KCC, Agriculture Infrastructure Fund, and Priority Sector Lending (PSL)guidelines have spurred lending to the sector.

TheeNAM, WDRA, and Digital India initiatives further align the ecosystem for growth.

5. Challenges

6. Outlook

The Indian agri-finance infrastructure is evolving into amore digitized, integrated, and formalized ecosystem.

With increasing adoption of eNWRs, digital credit models, and warehouse reforms, the market is expected to grow at ~10–12% CAGR in the coming years (Source: NABARD, ICAR estimates).

Thenext phasewill focus on scaling digital access to credit, reducing turnaround times, and bridging rural-urban financial divides.