Even as the ‘kar’ paddy season has commenced on a sluggish note as the southwest monsoon is playing truant, officials attached to the Department of Agriculture have started conducting surprise checks in the fertilizer, pesticides and seeds shops to check sale of substandard agro inputs.
So far, stop sale order has been issued for 3.63 tonnes of seeds and 4.50 tonnes of chemical fertilizers.
Though the erratic southwest monsoon has forced the farmers to rethink about starting the ‘kar’ paddy season preparations, the Department of Agriculture, reposing faith in nature, has taken steps for stocking adequate agro inputs including certified seeds, chemical fertilizers such as urea, di-ammonium phosphate, potash and complex fertilizer besides bio fertilizers in the district, ahead of the first paddy season of the calendar year. The agro inputs have been stocked in the Primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies and also in the shops of authorised dealers across the district.
Meanwhile, special teams have been formed to conduct surprise check in the outlets of fertilizer stockists to check the quality of the chemical nutrients being sold to farmers.
Though Collector M. Karunakaran announced that the sale of fertilizers at inflated price or agro inputs without proper permission would lead to cancellation of licence, farmers complained that some of the major stockists in the district were daringly flouting this instruction.
Hence, special teams have been instructed to conduct checks in these shops.
“When the teams comprising Assistant Director of Agriculture (Quality Control) and Agriculture Officers raided 14 fertilizer shops in Tenkasi, Shencottai and Kadayanallur areas recently, sale of Rs. 1.73 lakh-worth 4.50 tonnes of fertilizers was banned as it had been stocked without permission,” said L. Perumal, Joint Director of Agriculture (in-charge).
Similar raids are also being conducted to check the quality of seeds, especially paddy for ‘kar’ paddy cultivation.
“Of the 480 shops selling seeds in the district, surprise checks were conducted in 410 and 587 seed samples have been taken to be sent for analysis. Since 4 samples were found to be substandard, legal proceedings have been initiated in one case while departmental action (that includes cancellation of the shop’s licence) has been taken in the remaining three cases,” Mr. Perumal said.
Consequently, the officials have banned the sale of 3.63 tonnes of seeds, worth about Rs. 1.11 lakh.
Analysis
Mr. Perumal said the officials have been instructed to collect a minimum of 3,200 seed samples during the current fiscal and 531 of the 587 samples taken during the surprise checks had been analysed to find only 4 samples as defective or substandard.
Moreover, 186 fertilizer samples had been taken and 132 of them had been analysed to find 8 as substandard. In the pesticides section, 1,000 samples would be taken for analysis during this financial year.
“The Collector has instructed the officials to cancel the licence issued to the stockists if they dared to sell adulterated or substandard agro inputs,” Mr. Perumal said.
