Minister for Agriculture S. Niranjan Reddy has stated that the Government is actively examining establishment of fast-track courts for taking up cases against spurious seed sellers as such a facility would help punish the culprits without loss of much time.
He along with Minister for Home Md. Mahamood Ali asked the task force teams comprising agriculture and police officials formed to control and prevent the sale of spurious seed as also the sale of herbicide-tolerant (HT) cotton seed, which is not approved, and herbicide glyphosate to make efforts so that toil of farmers would not go waste.
In a video conference held from Hyderabad on Saturday with Superintendents of Police of districts, District Agriculture Officers and Agriculture Extension Officers as part of the plans to prevent the sale of spurious seed ahead of the next kharif season, Mr. Niranjan Reddy said the problem of spurious seed was high in cotton and chilli crops and farmers were generally going for uncertified and spurious seed as they were cheap compared to certified and quality seed.
