A year after the PM announced the setting up of a national rain-fed area authority, it has yet to be constituted. When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced the setting up of a national rain-fed area authority in his address to the nation on the Independence Day last year, it was viewed as a move to simultaneously address two major issues confronting the agriculture sector. These are deceleration in farm production and the farmers' distress leading to a spurt in suicides.