SKM meeting today on whether to recommend names for Centre's MSP panel

The meeting comes a day after the government formed a committee on Minimum Support Price (MSP), eight months after it promised to set up such a panel while withdrawing the three contentious farm laws.

New Delhi: Farmers' collective Samyukta Kisan Morcha, which spearheaded the agitation to get the agriculture laws scrapped, has called a meeting on Tuesday to discuss whether to recommend names for the Centre's committee on minimum support price. The government on Monday formed a committee on Minimum Support Price (MSP), eight months after it promised to set up such a panel while withdrawing the three contentious farm laws.

Former agriculture secretary Sanjay Agrawal will be the chairman of the committee. The government has made a provision to include three members from the Sanyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) in the panel. "Today, we are holding a meeting to decide whether we should send the names of three SKM leaders for the government's panel. We will announce our decision after the meeting," SKM leader Abhimanyu Kohar said.

Under the umbrella of SKM, thousands of farmers had held a year-long agitation at Delhi borders and forced the government to withdraw the farm laws. While announcing the repeal of three farm laws in November last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised to set up a committee to discuss the farmers' demand for a legal guarantee on MSP.

The Agriculture Ministry issued a gazette notification announcing the setting up of a committee in this regard. The panel will comprise Niti Aayog member Ramesh Chand, agri-economists CSC Shekhar from the Indian Institute of Economic Development and Sukhpal Singh from IIM- Ahmedabad and senior member of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) Naveen P Singh.

Among farmers' representatives, the committee will have national award-winning farmer Bharat Bhushan Tyagi, three members from SKM, and five members from other farmer organisations that include Gunwant Patil, and Krishnaveer Choudhary, Pramod Kumar Choudhary, Guni Prakash and Sayyed Pasha Patel. Two members of the farmers' cooperative, IFFCO Chairman Dilip Sanghani and CNRI General Secretary Binod Anand are included in the panel.

Senior members of agricultural universities, five central government secretaries and chief secretaries of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim and Odisha are also part of the committee. (PTI)