All necessary measures are in place for providing needed seeds to farmers for the Kharif, minister for agriculture Kanna Lakshminarayana has said.
Addressing mediapersons on Tuesday, he said that it was decided to distribute 19.50 lakh quintals of various seeds on subsidy to farmers during 2013-14 and an indent for the same was placed with the AP Seeds Corporation, AP Oil Fed and HACA (Hyderabad Agricultural Cooperative Association Limited) in November last itself.
‘’For this Kharif, based on the reports (required quantity of different seeds) of the joint directors of agriculture, it has been decided to supply 12 to 15 lakh quintals of seeds. As of date, 10.36 lakh quintals of the seeds have been supplied,’’ he said and claimed that it was much higher than the seeds positioned in the market last Kharif on the same day. At that time only 7.8 lakh quintals of the seeds were positioned in the market.
Though seeds had been positioned in the market by May end, only 30 percent of the seeds have been sold so far. The minister admitted that there were some problems pertaining to Soya seeds with a large number of cotton-growers shifting to soyabean cultivation. ‘’The phenomenon is particularly evident in Adilabad and Medak districts from where we received complaints of short supply of soya seeds. There have been issues of procuring them from Madhya Pradesh and transporting them to mandal headquarters. However, officials have been directed to address the issue at the earliest,’’ he said.
Paddy seeds have been positioned more than the planned amount. While it was planned to supply 2.88 lakh quintals of paddy seeds, 3.63 lakh quintals of seeds have been positioned so far. In case of Bt cotton, 1.25 crore seed packets were positioned and till date 30 lakh packets have been sold.
On the Seeds Bill, he said it was still with the law department and it would be tabled in the Assembly once it came to them from the law department. ‘’We have requested Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar for 1 lakh tonnes of additional urea and he agreed to sanction it,’’ Lakshminarayana warned ofstern action against anyone selling spurious seeds.
The minister gave his personal phone number along with two toll-free numbers to share information on spurious seeds. The toll-free numbers are: 18004253536; 18001801551. The agriculture minister’s number is: 9866522279.