Senior officers’ teams to check quality of agriculture products

Teams of senior agriculture officers have been sent to different districts of Punjab for raiding and checking dealers for quality of agricultural items, spurious seeds or other products related to agriculture, a senior Government official said on Thursday.

“The state-level teams will continuously raid the markets and keep a strict vigil on supply of products related with agriculture so that farmers get quality products or seeds,” said Additional Chief Secretary (Development), Viswajeet Khanna.

He said to provide quality agricultural items to the farmers, five teams of senior officers was sent to different districts for raiding or checking the dealers on Wednesday in which shops of 48 dealers were checked.

“During the raids in Bathinda district, a dealer — Balaji Seed store in Rama Mandi — was found selling spurious Bt Cotton seeds on false license and 1494 packets of spurious seed were seized from his premises. A case has been registered against the dealer,” said Khanna.

In another case at Gidderbaha in Sri Muktsar Sahib district, Khanna said that 930 packets of spurious seed were recovered from the shop of Chandan Hybrid Seed Company during raid and case is being registered against the dealers under Essential Commodities Act-1955 along with Seed Act-1966.

Khanna said that instructions have been issued to all the officers of Agriculture Department that strict vigil be maintained for checking the dealers in their jurisdiction so that no dealer should sell spurious seed or other products related with agricultural.

“Any official found conniving with any dealer, he or she will be dealt accordingly and strict disciplinary action will be taken against him or her,” he made it clear.

He also appealed to the farmers that they should always “get proper bill” of the items purchased. “Farmer should make it sure that dealer has written his name, Batch or Lot No, expiry date etc on the bill as written on the bag or container so that if anything found substandard or spurious, the farmer should be able to get the compensation from the erring dealer, if any,” he said.

Khanna said that in case the dealer is reluctant to offer bill, “a complaint to the Agriculture Office in their area should be made”.

“Chief Minister has directed that no illegal, spurious, substandard, fake seed, fertilizers and pesticides should be tolerated and the officers should ensure the supply of quality agricultural inputs to the farmers in their area of jurisdiction,” Khanna said.