Farmers accuse fertiliser vendors of overpricing, forced selling

Farmer organisations held a protest outside the office of Chief Agriculture Officer, seeking acceptance of their demands here on Wednesday.

They said DAP and urea are being sent through cooperative societies, along with these farmers of the society are being forced to buy sulphur, nano urea, zinc and other non-essential products. This process should be stopped immediately and action should be taken against the officials of the guilty cooperative society, they sought.

Private fertilizer vendors are selling fertilizers to farmers at higher prices or are forcibly selling products beyond their needs like sulphur, zinc, nano urea, potash and other products tagged with fertilizers. When fertilizer vendors are asked, they say that they are being forced to buy these items with fertilizers by wholesale fertilizer vendors.

According to the rules of the Agriculture Department, the consumer cannot be forced to buy more products, the department should take action against such wholesale vendors by conducting an impartial investigation into such cases without coming under political pressure, they demanded.

Shopkeepers who sell fake or inferior seeds or fertilizers, do not pay bills on sale of products, do not maintain stock boards should be checked and appropriate action should be taken as per the law, they demanded adding that provisions should be made to deal with the shortage of fertilizers that are actually and intentionally produced in each season.

The number of employees in the Agriculture Department, like other departments, is less, so new recruitment should be made to provide employment to the youth to run the work smoothly.

Raising an additional issue, they said the functioning of the Passport Office is causing inconvenience to the public and its working style needs immediate improvement.