Govt formed an MSP committee to strengthen the system more effectively and clearly.
The government made a Minimum Support Price (MSP) committee on Monday, eight months after it said it would do so when it revoked three controversial farm laws. Sanjay Agrawal, who used to be Secretary of Agriculture, will be in charge of the committee.
The government has set up a way for three members of Sanyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) to be on the committee, but so far the farm group hasn’t named anyone to be on the panel.
Under the SKM banner, thousands of farmers protested for about a year at the borders of Delhi, which forced the government to repeal the farm laws. Also Read | Centre would form a committee on MSP as soon as it receives names from SKM: Tomar
In November of last year, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that three farm laws would be thrown out, he said that he would set up a committee to talk about the farmers’ need for a legal guarantee on MSP. In this case, the Agriculture Ministry put out a notice in the gazette saying that a committee would be set up.
Ramesh Chand, a member of Niti Aayog, CSC Shekhar from the Indian Institute of Economic Development, Sukhpal Singh from IIM-Ahmedabad, and Naveen P Singh, a senior member of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), will be on the panel.
Bharat Bhushan Tyagi, a farmer who has won a national award, will be one of the farmer representatives on the committee. The committee will also have three members from SKM and five members from other farmer groups, including Gunwant Patil, Krishnaveer Choudhary, Pramod Kumar Choudhary, Guni Prakash, and Sayyed Pasha Patel.
The IFFCO Chairman Dilip Sanghani and the CNRI General Secretary Binod Anand are also on the committee. They are both part of the farmers’ cooperative and group.
The committee also has senior members from agricultural universities, five secretaries from the central government, and the chief secretaries of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim, and Odisha.
The notification says that the committee will look at ways to give farmers MSP by making the system more effective and clear.
It will also talk about how practical it would be to give CACP, which sets the MSP of agri-crops, more freedom and how to make it more scientific. Also Read | MSP will continue, committee been set up to improve effectiveness & transparency.
The panel will also look at ways to strengthen the Agricultural Marketing System to meet the changing needs of the country and give farmers more money for their crops by taking advantage of both domestic and international markets.
Along with MSP, the committee will look at ways to promote natural farming, crop diversification, and the micro irrigation scheme. It will also suggest ways to make Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) and other Research and Development institutions into knowledge centers.
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