The Centre has agreed to set up a high-powered committee to investigate several agriculture problems, including minimum support price (MSP) based on detailed prices, flagged by social activist Anna Hazare, in the midst of farmers' determination to continue their agitation.
In order to prevent Hazare from moving on his scheduled fast, the decision to set up the committee, headed by Agri Minister Narendra Tomar, was hastily made. Hazare had declared his fast would begin on Saturday, in solidarity with the farmers agitating for the repeal of farm laws.
Ministry sources said the committee will have of Niti Aayog member Ramesh Chand, MoS agriculture Parshottam Rupala, agri-trade law and policy specialist Vijay Sardana, Kanwal Singh Chauhan, a radical farmer from Haryana and Padma Shri awardee, and members of farmers. Hazare had previously written to the ministry listing pending demands including autonomy dependent on detailed cost (C2) to the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) and MSP as suggested by the MS Swaminathan committee as reasons for entering the farmers' protests through the swift.
The Committee, headed by Tomar, will finalize its recommendations in six months, as PM Modi referred to the proposals by the Ministry of Agriculture to place the implementation of agricultural laws on hold for 18 months during the all-party meeting on Saturday and set up a joint committee to make progress by addressing all farmers' demands during the time.
However, the unions opposed the plans, claiming that once the farm laws are abolished, they will not stop the demonstrations. Since the Centre had already adopted numerous Hazare proposals that the latter had written about earlier, Choudhary said the high-powered committee would discuss the pending issues in consultation with representatives of farmers.
In coordination with Hazare, the names of farmers' representatives for the panel will be finalized,' said an official, adding one joint secretary each from the ministries of agriculture, commerce and food & consumer affairs to the panel. He said that this committee will act independently from the panel constituted by the Supreme Court, which is expected to send its report to the apex court within two months of taking opinions from different stakeholders, including individual farmers and state government.
