Agri Dept Must Oversee Online Pesticide, Herbicide Sales: Kodanda Reddy

HYDERABAD: The Telangana Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Commission has expressed concern at unregulated sales of agrochemicals — be they pesticides, herbicides or fertilisers – on e-commerce platforms. The commission also called on agriculture department officials to crackdown on e-commerce platforms unless they possess the requisite clearances and licences to sell agrochemicals.

Commission chairman M. Kodanda Reddy, on Thursday said it was not enough for the department to say officials, when violations are detected, crackdown on physical shop sales of dangerous pesticides and herbicides. “Online platforms cannot be exempt from safety precautions, and sales must be only to those approved by agriculture officials. They must be held accountable to what they sell,” Kodanda Reddy said at a meeting with department officials, representatives of Amazon India, and Commission members.

The meeting, which took stock of the state of ban on paraquat dichloride, the herbicide which was banned recently by the stated government, was informed by representatives of Amazon that the company has not only banned sales in Telangana, but it now has a permanent ban across India following the Telangana government orders.

Kodanda Reddy said that after the government banned Paraquat, there were still some online sales and one such buyer ordered the product and committed suicide by consuming it. He asked the company representatives to inform their management of the commission’s views that no agrochemical should be sold online as the end use cannot be determined in such cases. He also said the agriculture department cannot say it could not act on e-commerce companies' godowns or stock points if they store pesticides and herbicides as these products require licences to be stocked or sold.