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Karimnagar: Spurious cotton seed business thrives as farmers gear up for Kharif season
As the farmers are gearing up for farm activities for coming of Kharif season, the traders of spurious seeds have also become active in the district nowadays.
Karimnagar: As the farmers are gearing up for farm activities for coming of Kharif season, the traders of spurious seeds have also become active in the district nowadays.
A large number of farmers will cultivate either cotton or paddy crops in thousands of acres. But many of them fall victims to fake seeds sold by some private companies by cheating them. On number of occasion, police conducted raids to stop the illegal business of fake seeds.
Keeping this in view as there is much demand for cotton seeds, the persons in indulged in illegal business of selling fake seeds are collecting information about the region in which n cotton and paddy are cultivated in large areas so that they could deploy their agents to sell the fake seeds to the farmers by announcing rewards to them.
In fact, if a person wants to run a seed shop, he must hand over the details of his shop and godowns before hand to the concern agriculture officials. But some seed shop owners who run illegal business hide the fake seeds in godowns which are not registered.
Recently, the police who conducted raids caught one seed merchant identified as Ram Reddy who stored fake seeds in a godown in the city. On investigation, he revealed that many seed shop owners also indulge in this illegal business.
As there is much demand for BT variety of cotton seeds, the fake seed racket thrive through their agents by transporting the spurious seeds to those areas where large number of farmers are cultivating such varieties by trapping them by selling spurious seeds.
The Central government has ban on selling of BT-3 variety of cotton seeds in the country. But the seed merchants indulged in illegal business are selling the BT-3 variety cotton seeds by changing the labels into BT-1 and BT-2 and are cheating the innocent farmers.
Godugu Satish, a farmer speaking to the Hans India, said many farmers who do not have proper education are falling in the trap laid by persons involved in fake seeds racket. The government should supply high quality seeds to the farmers to stop this illegal business, he observed.
Mandal Agriculture officer, Nagarjuna told the Hans India that as per the orders issued by the government, they collected seeds. Before purchasing the seeds, farmers must study about them carefully. They much check the label on the pockets as per the guidelines issued by the government or not and must buy from certified agencies only.
Meanwhile, receiving several complaints about fake seeds illegal business, Karimnagar Police Commissioner V B Kamalasan Reddy ordered the police officials to keep strict vigil on seed shops and godowns under the Commissionerate limits to keep check on illegal transporting of spurious seeds.
He also warned the persons indulged in spurious seeds business of imposing of PD Act against them and stringent against those who are helping such persons either directly or indirectly.
