‘Spurious seeds responsible for less wheat yield’

Spurious quality of seeds supplied by the state departments is responsible for less wheat yield this season. Abohar MLA Sunil Jakhar said this while reacting to the statement issued by Bhatinda MP Harsimrat Badal which said that the Centre should give some subsidy since wheat yield was 23 per cent less as compared to last year. He said,“The issue of spurious seeds was raised in the Vidhan Sabha budget session and in the reply it was mentioned that PUNSEED had supplied about 4,78,296 quintals of seeds and of this supply 70 per cent was PBW343,which was near expiry. Its production had also been reduced. The seed certification department had only 32 employees and hence the quality also could not be checked. So the results were obvious.”

He has now asked the CM to provide genuine seeds for cotton crop else the farmers in Malwa region will go under debts if the condition repeats.

Jakhar alleged the state has not utilised the funds sent by the National Food Security Mission under the National Agriculture Development Scheme,which gave crore for seed subsidy.

“The demand of Bhatinda MP seeking crop subsidy is not justified. The state should first set their house in order and they are responsible for the woes of the farmers now,” he said.