Jaipur: Serious irregularities such as use of marble slurry and soil in place of gypsum in fertilizer production and polishing the seeds by adding chemicals were found in the searches conducted by the Agricultural Minister of Rajasthan, Dr. Kirori Lal Meena in the last couple of weeks.
Meena while mentioning these malpractices in his letter to the Union Agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has demanded strict law against production, storage, and sale of substandard agriculture inputs.
“It appears that due to the supply of substandard inputs, the income of the farmers is being adversely affected, and their agricultural land is also becoming barren. Which is a matter of serious concern. In such a situation, there is a great need to make the current law regarding the production, storage, and sale of substandard fertilizers, seeds, and pesticides more effective and strict to protect the interests of the farmers so that the fraud and looting of the farmers can be stopped, and strict action can be taken against the culprits because the handful of traders or shopkeepers who do such acts have no fear of the current law,” said Meena in his letter to Union Agriculture minister Chouhan.
Appraising his searches and raids in various parts of the Rajasthan, Meena said that he conducted a thorough inspection of the fertilizer manufacturing units operating in Kishangarh area of Ajmer district, seed manufacturers in Sri Ganganagar and Hanumangarh districts and pesticide manufacturing units in Jaipur district. In these inspections, serious irregularities were found in most of the fertilizer manufacturing units.
He said that during this campaign, 28 FIRs have been registered against fertilizer manufacturing units, dealers, handling, and transport agents and 189 samples of fertilizers produced/stored by them have also been collected. Out of the 57 samples analyzed so far, 56 have been found to be substandard.
Meena pointed out irregularities in IFFCO, the leading fertilizer manufacturer of the cooperative sector as well.
“At four places in the state, suspicious goods of IFFCO were being manufactured in Kishangarh area of Ajmer district, while these units did not have any valid license to manufacture IFFCO's Sagarika brand in Rajasthan. The place of manufacture was mentioned as New Delhi and Tamil Nadu on the bags of the produced goods,” Meena mentioning in his letter.
Regarding supply of substandard seeds, Meena said that about 20 seed manufacturing units were inspected in Sri Ganganagar and Hanumangarh districts. Neither did they have information about the source of the authenticated seeds, nor was the list of seed producing farmers and irregularities like polishing the seeds by adding chemicals were found.
The farmers present on the spot said that the seed manufacturing companies are purchasing grains from the market itself and packaging the grains without following proper and prescribed procedure and selling them to poor farmers as seeds, due to which their agricultural production is decreasing. 46 samples of seeds prepared/stored by the said companies have been taken, which are being analyzed now.
Meena also questioned the quality of pesticides and said that at most places Chinese made goods and at some places suspicious pesticides banned in India were found.
Meena said "such substandard fertilizers, seeds, and pesticides produced by the said manufacturing units are being sold in 16 to 20 different states of the country apart from Rajasthan. We have informed the concerned states about this.
He urged the union minister for agriculture to issue instructions to various states of the country to take necessary action in this regard.
