SC Committee panel on farm laws to go public on Tuesday

New Delhi, Nov 22:  The Supreme Court appointed committee on the issue of three contentious farm laws held a meeting on Monday and said they would hold a press conference on Tuesday to announce the fate of the report that they had submitted in March.

The Shetkari Sanghatana leader from Maharashtra, Anil Ghanawat, who reached Delhi in the morning, held a meeting with another member of the panel, agriculture economist, Ashok Gulati.

The Supreme Court had appointed the three-member committee - apart from Ghanawat and Gulati, the third member is P.K. Joshi - in January this year while staying the three farm laws. The Committee had submitted the report in March after a wide multi-stakeholder consultation.

However, since then neither did the apex court make use of any of its recommendations nor was the report made public. Ghanawat had, in September, written to the then Chief Justice of India, to release the report so that its recommendations can be used by the government for resolving the agitation of the farmers that had turned widespread with even violence disturbing at some places. The government had held several rounds of talks with the farmers but neither side had budged.

Ultimately, on Friday when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced to repeal the three farm laws in the upcoming winter session, Ghanawat had termed the decision as "unfortunate". Gulati had a guarded response, wanting to wait for the committee announced by the Prime Minister for wider consultation.

Arora was referring to Modi's announcement to form a committee comprising representatives of the Centre, state governments, farmers, agriculture scientists and agriculture economists to discuss how Minimum Support Price (MSP) can be made more effective, how zero budget farming can be promoted and how crop patterns can be changed in a scientific manner.