Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture 2024
December 25 , 2024 16 hrs 0 min 63 0
A parliamentary committee has recommended implementing a legal guarantee on Minimum Support Price.
The committee, chaired by former Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi.
It has recommended subsidies for farmers to keep non-milching animals so that they can manage the problem of stray cattle.
The panel asked the Centre to increase the allocation for insuring livestock.
The panel said there is also need to prevent further growth of stray cattle from the already existing livestock population of 193.46 million cattle and 109.85 million buffaloes.
The committee has recommended that farmers be compensated for managing and disposing of crop residue, or parali, to prevent them from burning it.
The committee has proposed increasing monetary support under the PM-KISAN Samman Nidhi scheme from Rs 6,000 per annum to Rs 12,000 per annum.
It also asked to introduce a scheme to waive off the debts of farmers and the farm labourers to combat the rise in farmer distress and suicides over debt repayment.
The committee suggested implementing compulsory universal crop insurance for smallholder farmers with landholdings of up to 2 acres.