The Karnataka State Human Rights Commission (KSHRC) has recommended that the Government set up an “State Agriculture Commission” giving it statutory powers to fix support prices scientifically, KSHRC member Parthasarathy has said.
Addressing presspersons here on Monday, he said that the Government constituted a task force for everything, but there was none to fix support prices.
Since its inception, the commission had registered 14,798 cases, of which 7,814 had been disposed of, Mr. Parthasarathy said.
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Power cuts
He said the commission had written to the Government asking it to provide systematic power supply in rural areas. Unscheduled load-shedding had already affected drinking water distribution and it might lead to law and order problems in coming days, he said.
Mr. Parthasarathy said there was a provision in the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) Act to fix prices of commodities, but the APMC was not doing its job, and the commission had sought an explanation for this.
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The KSHRC had also recommended that the Government fulfil the farmers' demand that they be allowed to sell “Neera”.
Short-staffed
Mr. Parthasarathy said KSHRC required 500 personnel to establish its offices in all districts, but it had only 66.