Officials told to enforce ban on use of insecticides for basmati in Punjab

Tribune News Service

Kulwinder Sandhu

Moga, August 28

After imposing a ban on the use of seven insecticides and three fungicides on basmati, the state government has now issued fresh instructions to field officials of the Agriculture Department to strictly implement the ban. It has said legal action will be taken against dealers and retailers selling these insecticides.

The state government has banned the use of acephate, buprofezin, carbendazim, chlorpyrifos, methamidophos, propiconazole, thiamethoxam, tricylazole, profenofos and isoprothiolane agro-chemicals as these were becoming a hurdle in the export of rice due to strict regulatory norms being followed by European, Arab and western countries.

The directorate of the state Agriculture Department, in a letter to chief agriculture officers of all districts, stated that the government would randomly collect samples of basmati crop from across the state and send these to state insecticide testing laboratories at Mohali and Kharar for chemical testing.

“If traces of banned insecticides and fungicides are found in the samples, legal action will be taken against erring insecticide dealers/retailers,” the letter stated. It stated that agriculture development and agriculture extension officers must move out in the field to educate farmers about producing insecticide-free basmati so that food grain could be exported easily and fetched a good price.

There were reports that huge stocks of these banned insecticides and fungicides were available with all dealers and retailers in the state. “We do not know what to do with the stock as most of the insecticides are also used for other crops. Agriculture officials have told us that we cannot sell these for other crops also. The manufacturing companies are not willing to lift the stocks lying with us. After two months, most of the stocks will expire. We will suffer huge losses,” said a local insecticide dealer at the Moga grain market.

“We have asked insecticide dealers and retailers to prepare a stock list of the banned insecticides and fungicides available with them so that this record can be maintained by the Agriculture Department at the district level and a physical verification can be done,” said Dr Jaswinder Singh Brar, Assistant Plant Protection Officer of Moga district.

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