The decision to set up the committee is being seen as a well-calculated move by the Chief Minister to ``clip the wings'' of Civil Supplies Minister Jaspal Singh, who had recently locked horns with Patel on the contentious issue of skyrocketing prices of groundnut oil.

The decision was taken at a Cabinet meeting here today. The other members of the sub-committee are: Finance Minister Vajubhai Vala, Health Minister Ashok Bhatt, Agriculture Minister Nitin Patel, Narmada Development Minister Jay Narayan Vyas, Roads and Buildings Minister Savji Korat and Jaspal Singh.

Briefing newspersons after the Cabinet meeting, the Chief Minister said the seven-member committee would meet regularly and take decisions on important aspects of pricing, stocks and export of groundnuts and groundnut oil. It would also monitor the implementation of decisions taken on such important issues, he added.

The Chief Minister said the idea behind constituting the committee was to protect the interests of not only groundnut growers, but also of consumers. Significantly, Suresh Mehta, who had divested Singh of the civil supplies portfolio when the former was Chief Minister in 1996, has been asked to head the seven-member panel.

To a query, the Chief Minister said the committee would also regularly review the situation arising out of the rising prices of onions and potatoes and take decisions to regulate them to protect the interests of both farmers and consumers.

It may be recalled here that Jaspal Singh had recently sought to attribute the spiralling prices of edible oils to the Chief Minister's ``faulty policy'' of lifting the ban on export of groundnut oil and seeds outside the State. This had forced the Chief Minister to issue a statement, saying the ban was not in national interests.