According to official sources, the committee on Minimum Support Price (MSP) will debate future plans at its first meeting on August 22.
The National Agriculture Science Complex (NASC) in the nation’s capital would host the conference at 10.30 am, the sources.
committee will announce its members, debate “future plans,” and consider creating sub-panels to address the broad topics specified in the terms of reference during its first meeting.
According to reports, the administration is currently trying to convince Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) to participate in the committee’s activities. It remains to be seen if SKM will change its stance and propose three delegates.
SKM has already rejected this committee and chose not to select its members, which made the creation of this committee necessary after it organised farmers’ protests against three farm legislation and persuaded the government to abolish them.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged to form a committee to look into farmers’ MSP issues when he announced the repeal of three farm regulations in November of last year.
The group was established on July 18 with the goals of “promot[ing] zero budget based farming,” “modifying” crop patterns to take into account the nation’s changing demands, and “making MSP more [effective and] transparent.” The committee is led by former agriculture secretary Sanjay Agrawal.
There are 26 members total, including the committee’s chairman and three seats reserved for SKM representatives.
Members of the committee include senior member Naveen P Singh of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), agri-economists CSC Shekhar from the Indian Institute of Economic Development, and Sukhpal Singh from IIM-Ahmedabad.
Bharat Bhushan Tyagi, a farmer who has won national awards, is one of the committee’s farmer representatives. There are also five additional members from farmer organisations: Gunwant Patil, Krishnaveer Choudhary, Pramod Kumar Choudhary, Guni Prakash, and Sayyed Pasha Patel.
The committee also includes the chairman of the farmers’ cooperative (IFFCO), Dilip Sanghani, and the general secretary of the CNRI, Binod Anand.
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The committee also includes senior representatives from agricultural universities, five secretaries of the federal government, and the chief secretaries of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim, and Odisha.
