The Tamil Nadu Government should initiate criminal action against fertilizer dealers, traders and officials of the Agriculture Department for defrauding farmers, the Vivasayeegal Sangam, a non-partisan farmers’ organisation, has demanded.
In their letter to the Principal Secretary, Department of Agriculture, the organisation’s general secretary P. Kandasamy and president ‘Vazhukkuparai’ Balu had said that the aforementioned three had conspired together to cheat farmers by selling spurious and inferior quality fertilizers, at a price more than what was permitted and diversion of fertilizers for non-agricultural purposes.
They had said that the inspection report available with the officials in Coimbatore had clearly established that the fraud could not have been committed without the active connivance of officials in the quality control wing of the Department.
Naming two fertilizer companies, they had said that at the time of inspection, the two were found not having the stock as mentioned in the stock register. The first organisation had no stock where as the stock register mentioned it had 4,107 bags of potash. The organisation ought to have 500 metric tonne of potash but it had only 404. The difference clearly established that the two organisations had diverted the fertilizer to fireworks manufacturing companies. But the Department had not yet initiated action. It had also failed to act against those who continued to sell urea at Rs. 325 a bag.
The farmers’ leaders had also told the Principal Secretary that though the Regional Fertiliser Laboratory had certified that fertilizers available with a company were of inferior quality in August last year, the Deputy Director, quality control, Department of Agriculture, had chosen to write a letter seeking explanation only in December last year, by which time the fertilizers had been distributed all over the State.
Urging the Principal Secretary to inspect the tour dairy of the officials in-charge of quality control of fertilizers, the farmers had sought compensation for the farmers who had bought the fertilisers. They had added that by raising bogus invoices, the companies concerned had also caused loss to the State Government.
