‘Dubious’ pesticide still up for sale
Tribune News Service
Bathinda, April 5
Additional Chief Secretary (development) Suresh Kumar today advised the agriculture officials to boost their awareness campaign against whitefly in villages to save the cotton crop. He also maintained that the Oberon pesticide, to which the farmers had alleged of being ineffective in controlling whitefly damage, would remain available for farmers in the coming season also.
There has been a lot of hue and cry over the Oberon pesticide, which the farmers termed fake and duplicate. The farmers had witnessed huge damage to the cotton crop due to whitefly in last cotton season and had demanded a compensation of Rs 40,000, which was not given by the government, though it paid Rs 8,000 as compensation per acre to each farmer.
Suresh Kumar said the focus was on awareness camps to inform the farmers about crop and pesticide usage besides making them aware about duplicate seeds and pesticides. He claimed that about 130 scouts had been recruited by the government to create awareness among the farmers and instructed the officials to get a board displayed in each village with the name and telephone number of each scout mentioned on it so that farmers could know about their crop anytime from the scouts.
However, in the meeting when some Agriculture Development Officers (ADOs) were asked about the area and number of villages being looked upon them, the ADOs replied that they would be able to tell only after checking the records which left everyone in the meeting laughing.
Few farmers present in the meeting also raised the issue of not getting power supply during the day. Suresh Kumar said it was not possible to provide power to all villages during the day as each village would have to go through the rotation of power supply during day and night.
At the end of the meeting, a senior agriculture official maintained that power supply to farmers was being given partly which was again harmful for cotton farmers and the supply should be given for eight hours regularly. However, PSPCL officials said that in some villages, as the combines work during the day, they had to cut the power supply, but during the night, they supplied power regularly to the farmers.
When queried by the media over the Oberon pesticide issue, Suresh Kumar said, “There were four pesticides recommended by the Agriculture Department last season and they would remain available to the farmers this season also. There was nothing wrong in the pesticide, rather the usage of it was not done at the correct time. The timing of pesticide usage matters.”
Replying to another query that farmers were now being asked to report their suicides if they wanted compensation, he said, “If any family member of a farmer, who had committed suicide, reaches the district officials to report about the suicide, it becomes the responsibility of the Deputy Commissioner to look into the matter and compensate the family within a day after verifying the case.”
