SKM rejects govt's MSP panel; says 'so-called' farmer leaders who supported 3 farm laws are in panel
New Delhi, Jul 19: The Samyukta Kisan Morcha, an umbrella body of farmer unions, on Tuesday rejected the government's committee on minimum support price, saying "so-called farmer leaders" who supported the now-repealed farm laws are its members.
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 held a meeting of non-political leaders of Samyukta Kisan Morcha. All leaders rejected the government's panel. The government has inducted so-called farmer leaders in the panel who didn't have anything to do with our agitation against the three farm laws at the Delhi borders," farmer leader Abhimanyu Kohar told PTI.
Kohar said the government has also made some corporate people members of the MSP panel.
The farmer leader said that the SKM would issue a detailed statement on its stand in the evening.
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 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, 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.
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Patna-bound IndiGo flight makes emergency landing at Lucknow due to bad weather
Lucknow (PTI): Adverse weather forced an IndiGo Kolkata-Patna flight to make an emergency landing at Lucknow airport on Friday, airport sources said.
According to airport officials, weather conditions in Patna deteriorated suddenly on Friday afternoon, affecting flight operations.
IndiGo flight 6E 6917 from Kolkata, which was scheduled to land in Patna at 3.50 pm, could not land due to bad weather and kept circling in the air after failing to get clearance from air traffic control, they said.
The flight was later diverted to Lucknow and landed safely at the Chaudhary Charan Singh International Airport at around 5.15 pm. There were 180 passengers and six crew members on board, officials said.
The aircraft was later allowed to depart for Patna after weather conditions improved.
