Hyderabad: Cops step up spurious seed watch

Hyderabad: With the Kharif season starting in a few weeks, a big challenge lies in front of the state police and the agriculture department in controlling the sale of spurious and non-germinable seeds to farmers in order to prevent losses.

At least 100 spurious seed rackets across the state have been busted by the police already. Fraudsters have been found to resort to selling spurious or non-germinable seeds that might have failed germination tests. These seeds are generally sold to farmers as hybrid seeds and not in sealed packets.

To curb the menace, the state government has, in several districts, deployed special task force teams comprising personnel from the police and the agriculture department to conduct regular checks at government-approved outlets and production units so as to keep a tab on the stocks of germinable and non-germinable seeds.

A week ago, the Karimnagar police seized about 39.24 quintals of spurious cotton seeds and arrested five persons who were attempting to sell the seeds to farmers.

The seeds were found stored in a godown in Huzurabad. “Task force teams have been briefed on how sellers exploit the lack of awareness among villagers to sell spurious and rejected seeds at the village level. Traders, too, have been warned of stringent action if found guilty of selling non-germinable seeds,” a senior police official said.  With one team deployed in every mandal in the districts, checks are being conducted every day to prevent the sale of rejected and expired seeds. The official explained, “Seeds that fail the germination test are handed over to seed organisers, some of whom try selling the same to farmers under different brand labels to earn easy money.”

A case was registered at Kolikonda police station in Mahbubnagar district against the owner of the Sona seeds production company for not maintaining a proper record of rejected seeds.