Bhubaneswar, Feb 27: Odisha government has decided to set up a Law Commission and an Agriculture Cabinet, besides changing the nomenclature of Agriculture Department to Department of Agriculture and Farmers Empowerment.
Separate proposals in this regard were approved at the Cabinet meet here presided over by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
Agriculture Cabinet would be headed by the chief minister and nine other ministers associated with agriculture and farmers would be members in the proposed body.
The other members included ministers of finance, agriculture, fisheries and animal resources, co-operation, water resources, energy, food supplies and consumer welfare, scheduled tribe and scheduled caste development and panchayati raj.
The proposed Agriculture Cabinet would deal with subjects like self-sufficiency in food grain production, employment creation, infusion of technology in agriculture sector, uncertainty in price index, raise income of farmers and investment in the agriculture sector.
The meeting of the Agriculture Cabinet would be held as and when required.
Asked the purpose of changing the name of the agriculture department, State Chief Secretary AP Padhi said, as small and marginal farmers constitute an overwhelming majority of the total farmers, there was a need for placing focus on individual farmers to enable and empower them to avail the various benefits under different schemes and programmes of the government.
The cabinet also approved the amendment of Odisha Government Rules of Business for the change.
Similarly, the Cabinet also approved changing the name of Planning and Coordination Department to Department of Planning and Convergence.
The new Law Commission was required to improve and revise the existing law and enact law in consonance with the present scenario.
The complex job of advising the state government to amend the existing law, repeal obsolete law and consolidate, modify and bring reforms in law could only be undertaken by persons having sufficient experience and expertise in various branches of law, and administration of law and justice, he said.
The Commission would be headed by a retired chief justice of a High Court or a retried judge of the Supreme Court or High Court. There will be ten members in the State Law Commission and the tenure of the chairperson and members will be three years.
