1,350-kg spurious seeds seized, 2 held

Ludhiana, October 18

The Agriculture Department on Tuesday held two dealers with a huge cache of what it termed as spurious seeds, which were kept for sale to the gullible farmers in Ludhiana.

An FIR under Sections 3 and 7 of the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, Sections 8, 10 of the Seeds Rules, 1968, and Section 3 of the Seeds (Control) Order, 1983, was registered against the accused trader Rajinder Kumar at the Division 5 police station here. However, no arrest was made as yet.

The action was taken under a massive campaign underway to check the unauthorised sale of non-notified and poor quality seeds, which not only causes monetary loss but also leads to less or defected crop yield.

Sharing details, the Chief Agriculture Officer (CAO), Dr Amanjit Singh, told The Tribune that a special campaign was launched to check the storage and sale of spurious and low quality seeds and other agriculture material before the onset of the rabi season.

“Even before the recently held PAU Kisan mela, another special team was constituted to thoroughly check the seed dealers’ shops to ensure only authorised selling of notified seeds,” he said, while revealing that a large scale sampling of seeds was in progress under the campaign.

The CAO, who was heading the raiding team, said during this drive, unauthorised wheat and mustard seeds of different varieties, weighing 1,350-kg, were found during a raid at the premises of a seed dealer located opposite PAU Gate 2 on Ferozepur Road here this afternoon.