Farmers pay more for wheat seed due to shortage at HSDC outlets

CHANDIGARH: At a time when sowing of wheat is at its peak, farmers across the state are allegedly being forced to pay through the nose for buying costlier seed due to its shortage at outlets of the Haryana Seed Development Corporation (HSDC).

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 7

At a time when sowing of wheat is at its peak, farmers across the state are allegedly being forced to pay through the nose for buying costlier seed due to its shortage at outlets of the Haryana Seed Development Corporation (HSDC).

Seed supplied by the HSDC is priced at Rs 2,000 per quintal (inclusive of fungicides for its treatment), while farmers are allegedly being made to cough up Rs 2,300 to Rs 2,500 per quintal for seed without fungicide.

Prahlad Singh Bharukhera, state president of the Haryana Kisan Manch, alleged that hapless farmers had to return empty-handed from outlets of the HSDC daily.

Bharukhera also questioned the ‘high pricing’ of the HSDC seed given the fact that the Central government gave a subsidy of Rs 1,000 per quintal on the wheat seed.

“If seed is available at Rs 2,300 to Rs 2,500 in the open market, the HSDC should sell it for Rs 1,300 to 1,500 per quintal. Even if we add the cost of fungicide, it will add only Rs 18 to the price,” he said.

Sources said that wheat was to be sown on nearly 25 lakh hectares in the state this year. Going by the requirement of one quintal per hectare, nearly 25 lakh quintals of wheat seed would be required in the state.

Sources said that half of the requirement was met by farmers themselves, since many farmers produce their own quality wheat and preserve it for the next year to be used as seed.

However, against the requirement of 12.5 lakh quintals, the HSDC had produced merely 2.72 lakh quintals of seed for sale this year.

Rajinder Beniwal, an elected director of the HSDC, told The Tribune that he as well as other elected director Bhagwan Dass had raised the issue in the last meeting of the Board of Directors (BoD) that why the corporation did not produce the seed in qualities as required by the farmers.

RK Solanki, Managing Director of the HSDC, however, denied any shortage and said the availability of seed this year was 2.72 lakh quintals against 2.04 lakh quintals last year.

He said the HSDC was not supposed to fulfil the entire requirement of the farmers, but its main function was to stabilise the prices by entering the market with subsidised rates.

Wheat variety HD-2967 out of stock

Karnal, November 7

Farmers are struggling to get subsidised wheat seed from the government sale centres in the district. Sources in the Agriculture Department said that HD-2967 variety of seed was out of stock due to its high demand. Nearly 70 per cent demand was for HD-2967 due to its high-yielding quality, followed by WH-1105, HD-3086, PBW-550, HD-2851, DB-17 and other varieties, said the sources.

Due to non-availability of the seed at the government sale centres, scores of farmers had to return empty-handed daily. In such a situation, they had to procure seed from private dealers at Rs 2,200-2,400 per quintal, said the sources.

Pawan Kumar, a farmer from Baldi village, said he had been running from pillar to post to get the seed of HD-2967 variety.

Pardeep Meel, Deputy Director, Agriculture, admitted the shortage of HD-2967 variety due to its high demand.

He said that the HD-2967 seed was out of stock as maximum farmers were sowing this variety this year. TNS