Centre forms committee on MSP, other farm issues; no representative from Punjab
New Delhi, July 18: The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare constituted a committee to make minimum support price more effective and transparent, promoting crop diversification and natural farming.
The committee will also promote zero budget farming and changing crop patterns with an eye on the country's changing needs.
Representatives from state government, Additional Chief Secretary/Principal Secretary/Commissioner Agriculture have been taken as members from four states but not from Punjab neither from Punjab Agricultural Department.
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The committee has been formed after the written assurance which was made 7 months ago and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised to set up the panel while withdrawing the contentious farm laws led to year-long farmer protests and sit ins across the country.
Former Agriculture Secretary Sanjay Agrawal will head the committee. NITI Aayog member for Agriculture Ramesh Chand will be prt of the committee.
C S C Shekhar, professor at the Institute of Economic Growth and Sukhpal Singh, professor, Centre for Management in Agriculture, IIM Ahmedabad have joined as agricultural economists on the committee.
Bharat Bhushan Tyagi will join the committee as a national award-winning member. The committee will also comprise farmers' representatives, with three members to join from the Sanyukta Kisan Morcha, the coalition of 45 Indian farmers' unions.
The committee will deliberate on crop diversification through mapping existing patterns, strategy to diversify them, and incentivise these by ensuring remunerative prices for crop sales. Micro irrigation schemes are also on the agenda, the ministry says.
There are names of 16 people on this committee, including experts from the agriculture and cooperative sectors. This committee will work to make MSP more effective and transparent. So that the income of farmers will increase.
According to the notification issued by the government, three members will be included if the name comes from the Samyukt Kisan Morcha.
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Meanwhile, the government has included five names from other farmer organisations. These include the names of Gunwant Patil, Krishnaveer Choudhary, Pramod Kumar Chaudhary, Gunee Prakash and Pasha Patel.
-PTC News
