Punjab State Farmers and Farm Workers Commission Act, 2017
No: 28 Dated: Dec, 29 2017
THE PUNJAB STATE FARMERS AND FARM WORKERS COMMISSION ACT, 2017
(Punjab Act No.28 of 2017)
An Act to provide for the establishment of the Punjab State Farmers and Farm Workers Commission to examine and review the status of agriculture and allied sectors in the State and that of rural infrastructure; to suggest measures of economically viable and ecologically sustainable agriculture development and to provide for the matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.
Be it enacted by the legislature of the State of Punjab in the Sixty-eighth Year of the republic of India as follows:
1. Short title and commencement. - (1) This Act may be called the Punjab State Farmers and Farm Workers Commission Act, 2017.
(2) It shall come into force on and with effect from the date of its publication in the Official Gazette.
2. Definitions. - In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires, -
(a) "agriculture" shall include horticulture and the use of the land for any purpose of husbandry inclusive of the keeping or breeding of livestock, poultry, piggery, fishery or bees and the cultivation of agro forestry and the like;
(b) "Chairperson" means the Chairperson of the Commission;
(c) "Commission" means the Commission constituted under section 3 of this Act;
(d) "farmer" means a person who owns or cultivates land and whose means of livelihood is income from cultivation of such land or partly by income from cultivation of such land and partly by income he gets as wages in cash or kind or partly in cash or partly in kind from other allied agricultural occupations he performs;
(e) "farm worker" means a person principally engaged with a farmer in the capacity of a worker on hire and who gets his wages in cash or kind in connection with the agricultural operations he performs;
(f) "Fund" means the Punjab State Farmers and Farm Workers Corpus Fund constituted under section 19 of this Act;
(g) "Government" means the Government of the State of Punjab in the Department of Agriculture;
(h) "Member-Secretary" means the Member-Secretary of the Commission;
(i) "prescribed" means prescribed by rules made under this Act; and
(j) "private entity" means all individuals not on government pay roll and all Companies, Societies, Cooperatives, partnership firms, charitable organizations and limited liability partnership firms.