NEW DELHI: The central committee, constituted to suggest measures to make minimum support price (MSP) available to farmers across the country, promote natural farming and prepare a comprehensive strategy for crop diversification, will hold its first meeting on August 22, listening to views of stakeholders including experts and farmer representatives.
Though the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) – joint platform of farmer organisations that spearheaded protests against farm laws during 2020-21 – will not take part in the meeting, five other farmer representatives of different organisations that supported the farm laws and demanded reforms would attend the meeting at NASC complex, Pusa on next Monday.
“We are not part of the committee which doesn’t include our key demand of ‘legal guarantee’ to MSP as one its terms of reference. We have already rejected the panel and not sent names of our representatives. We continue to stick to our demands and stand. So, there is no question of attending any such meeting,” said Yudhvir Singh, general secretary of BKU (Tikait) and one of the SKM leaders.
On the other hand, Krishnaveer Choudhary of Bharatiya Krishak Samaj who is one of the five farmer representatives in the 29-member committee said, “I will attend the meeting. How can you raise issues of farmers without attending the meeting? I’ll bring before the panel the farmers’ wish. Those who will not attend the meeting are not well-wishers of farmers.”
The committee, headed by former agriculture secretary Sanjay Agrawal, was constituted last month. It does not have, however, any timeframe to submit its recommendation to the government. The agriculture ministry that notified the panel remained silent on farmer unions’ key demand of granting legal guarantee to MSP.
The ministry kept the posts of three members vacant in the panel to accommodate the SKM’s representatives once it received their names. Besides farmer representatives, Niti Aayog member Ramesh Chand; agriculture economists CSC Shekhar from Indian Institute of Economic Development and Sukhpal Singh from IIM, Ahmedabad are among other members of the committee.
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