Agri Dept asks farmers not to buy pesticides directly from suppliers

Aakanksha N Bhardwaj

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, June 14

A day after the Agriculture Department had got an FIR lodged against a supplier of medicines after its samples had failed in Pesticides Testing Laboratory, Chandigarh, department officials have made an appeal to the farmers not to buy anything directly from the suppliers.

The farmers should instead first ask the department regarding the product and then proceed, the officials said.

The department has been making this appeal in camps to the farmers that if anyone approaches them to sell any fertilizer, farmers must call the department officials first.

The officials said the farmers must buy insecticides and pesticides only from licence holders.

The Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Department had busted a gang involved in supplying spurious pesticides to farmers by seizing eight quintals of spurious Imdeclopreed 0.3 GR medicine on a tip-off.

The pesticide was being sold to the farmers in the name of Indian Crop Science Meerut, Uttar Pradesh. Chief Agriculture Officer Dr Nazar Singh said the farmers were being duped in the name of cheap medicine which was, in reality, a spurious one.

The Chief Agriculture Officer said the company was not recognised by the Agriculture Directorate, Punjab, for its operations in the state.

After seizing the pesticides, it was sent to Pesticides Testing Laboratory in Chandigarh where its samples had failed.

Subsequently, cases under Sections 420 (Cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 274 (Adulteration of drugs) and 120-B (Whoever is a party to a criminal conspiracy to commit an offence) of the IPC and 7 EC was registered against suppliers.

Reiterating the firm commitment of the state government to safeguard the interests of the farmers, the Chief Agriculture Officer said the department was making all-out efforts to ensure the sale of genuine pesticides in the district under the Tandarust Punjab Mission.

He said officers of the department had already been directed to plug sale and storage of spurious pesticides to ensure that farmers were facilitated at every cost.

Dr Nazar Singh said this campaign would continue in the coming days to keep a check on the sale of spurious pesticides.