Even as raid to check the sale of underweight urea bags continues in the district, the Agriculture Department officials have so far detected 355.35 tonnes of underweight bags in the district and banned the sale of these defective bags.
As most of the manually packed 50 kg urea bags were found to be underweight and ‘The Hindu’ subsequently carried a story on this, Collector M. Karunakaran asked the Joint Director, Department of Agriculture, C. Chandrasekaran, to convene a meeting of officials, representatives of Krishak Bharati Cooperative Limited (KRIBHCO), an Indian cooperative society that imported the fertilizer from Sultanate of Oman and packed it in bags through outsourcing and Tamil Nadu Cooperative Marketing Federation (TANFED) to arrive at a solution for sorting out this problem.
Subsequently, special fertilizer checking squads, headed by Assistant Director of Agriculture (Quality Control) R. Kajendra Pandian and agricultural officers of all 19 blocks inspected all Primary Co-operative Credit societies and private dealers in the district.
“We have issued ‘stop sales’ order for 355.35 tonnes of KRIBHCO urea. It includes 75.30 tonnes of underweight KRIBHCO urea bags stocked with 17 private dealers and 87.60 tonnes stocked with 36 Primary Agricultural Co-operative Credit Societies. ‘Stop sales’ orders were also issued to 192.45 tonnes stocked in the TANFED fertilizer godown,” Mr. Pandian said.
Mr. Chandrasekaran said that the inspection was being carried out in the supply outlets and suitable action taken to stop the sale of underweight urea bags.
“Moreover the KRIBHCO sales officer has assured to standardize the underweight urea bags within a week,” Mr. Chandrasekaran said.
KRIBHCO sales officer has assured to standardize the underweight urea bags within a week, says Joint Director
