The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Crackdown on suppliers of spurious farm inputs soon

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 24, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Crackdown on suppliers of spurious farm inputs soon

Special Correspondent

Agriculture Minister orders verification of supplies by all agencies

HYDERABAD: Indicating an impending crackdown on suppliers of spurious farm inputs this year, the Government on Thursday suspended a top-ranking official, R. Vishnuvardhan Reddy of Hyderabad Agriculture Cooperative Association Limited (HACA), for supplying 17 truckloads of low quality groundnut seed to Rayalaseema region.

The Agriculture Minister, N. Raghuveera Reddy, said the Anantapur district Collector rejected 26 lorry loads of seeds supplied by different agencies, including two of the Government. Of them, 17 loads belonged to HACA. Each load of seed was worth Rs. 2 lakhs.

The Minister ordered verification of the supplies by all other agencies also before making bill payments. The other two Government agencies were Oil Fed and A.P Seeds Corporation.

The Government stumbled upon a racket run by three kingpins at Baroda, who supplied the spurious seeds from Gujarat. Wagons with fake seeds meant for Andhra Pradesh were found and stocks seized. One of them has been arrested by the Maharashtra police. The Gujarat Government's help has been sought in the case and a police team deputed to Baroda to nab the other two.

On the eve of the kharif onset, Mr. Raghuveera Reddy, along with the Home Minister, K. Jana Reddy, held a video-conference and issued guidelines to the Collectors and SPs for cracking down on suppliers of spurious seeds, fertilizers and pesticides. He said that yet another racket detected recently in Anantapur-Kurnool area under which a mix of ash and black-soil were sought to be sold as "bio-fertilizer". A separate law would be considered to deal with this problem at the next Cabinet meeting on July 1.

He said Mayco and Parry companies had been blacklisted regarding cotton seeds. Law officers would be appointed on Friday for each district to deal with the cases of spurious supplies and three special courts set up for expediting them.

The Ministers asked officers to concentrate on Guntur, Kurnool and Warangal from where the spurious supplies originated. Cotton and chillies were the seeds in which most fake business took place.

The Home Minister wanted the police to be ruthless and invoke provisions of the Essential Commodities Act against the suppliers of spurious commodities.

Mr .Raghuveera Reddy asked farmers to purchase only certified seeds and not to get panicky as 13.5 lakh tonnes of quality seeds were stocked for the season - sufficient to meet 35 per cent of the requirement.

Fake seeds rule the roost

Top official suspended

Baroda-based racket unearthed

Law officers to be appointed

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