First Meeting of High-Powered Committee of Chief Ministers for Transformation of Indian Agriculture

The High-Powered Committee of Chief Ministers for Transformation of Indian Agriculture held its first meeting. It held deliberations on the following issues:

• It held discussions on the possibility of linking the adoption of reforms to the Finance Commission’s grants and allocations.
• The potential scrapping of the Essential Commodities Act for the food sector.
• Dismantling of market monopolies, and steps to increase private investment and investment credit in the sector.
• Ways to ensure fair prices and end manipulative monopolies in local agriculture produce mandis.
• Need to remove obstacles to the implementation of the digital e-NAM system in all States.
• Approaches to spur growth in the food processing sector which must grow at a faster pace than the overall agriculture sector in order to increase farmers’ income.
• Need for better coordination between the Agriculture and Commerce Ministries to ensure a dynamic pricing policy based on global market trends for major agricultural commodities.
• Ways to ensure the subsidies are targeted better in order to maximise benefits for farmers.
• Need for States to adopt the Centre’s Model Contract Farming Act.

The committee emphasised that since agriculture is a State subject and all the States must be brought on board and there is a need for simultaneous and time-bound reforms across States to bring effective transformation countrywide.