Punjab millers express concern over sale of unapproved paddy seeds
Bahadurjeet Singh /Rupnagar,May 13,2024
Punjab Rice Millers Association president Tarsem Saini said that the millers would not come forward to store the paddy stocks for custom milling from the next kharif season if steps were not taken by the government to stop the sale of unapproved paddy seeds in the state.
While talking to media persons here today, Saini said that a meeting took place in the Chandigarh Office of Punjab Agricultural University (PAU)Ludhiana recently under the Chairmanship of Vice-Chancellor of PAU in which Rice breeder experts were also present besides the representatives of Director Agriculture Punjab and he (Saini) participated.
He said that discussions were held over the paddy seed varieties due to non milling of certain paddy during the last year and violations during paddy procurement were being linked with PR-126 variety. Upon comprehensive discussions by Punjab Rice Millers Association, it was disclosed that duplicate seeds were being sold in the market under the brand name of PR-126 and farmers were not being provided any proof in this regard.
Like this in many districts such as Amritsar, Taran- Taran, Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Hoshiarpur, Gurdaspur, Ropar and Fatehgarh Sahib hybrid seeds are being sold in large scale, which are not approved by the Agriculture University.
Beside this, possibility of complicity of officials of Agriculture Dept. with the Multinational Companies cannot be ruled out to promote their seed varieties for their personal gains. So Agriculture department was asked to enforce stringent measures to curb the sale of unapproved seed varieties through their field net-work and to collect the data of availability of PR-126 variety seed with the dealers and stockists. PAU Vice-Chancellor further desired that samples of these stocks should be sent to there for analysis to check their authenticity and assured to initiate actions against delinquent dealers/stockists.
Punjab millers express concern over sale of unapproved paddy seeds. He said that Punjab Rice Millers Association on its part clarified PAU and Agriculture department that this year Sheller industry suffered a lot due to hybrid and duplicate seeds of rice variety PR-126 as a result of which 30 Lakh Ton. Rice of last year’s paddy was still pending. Raising the concerns over unauthentic seed sales and consequent milling quality issues related to rice hybrids and cautioned to intensify efforts in controlling the sale of duplicate seeds and improving the quality of rice hybrids otherwise millers would not come forward to store the paddy stocks for custom milling from the next kharif season.
Moninder verma distt president Rupnagar,Lakhbir Singh president Sirhind .Sanjay Bhoot vice president Punjab, Lavi Bhargav, Nakul Kumar, Anoop singh, Jimmy Bansal, Sumit Bansal, Arryu Goyal, Morinda- Vipan Kumar, Sandep Goyal, . Jaspreet Singh, Harinder Deol, Pawn Ram Singh, Jaspal Singh, Harkirat Singh were also present on the occasion.