To check urea misuse, agri dept raids 14 firms

Tribune News Service

Yamunanagar, January 17

A team of the Agriculture and Farmer Welfare Department, Haryana, led by Joint Director (Quality Control), conducted surprise checking at 14 business establishments — eight plywood factories and six fertiliser dealers — in the district.

Sources said that the team found that the record of two fertiliser dealers was incomplete and issued show-cause notice to their owners.

Dr Surinder Singh Yadav, Deputy Director Agriculture, said that the surprise checking was conducted in order to stop the illegal sale of agriculture-grade urea to the plywood industry.

He said that the plywood industry could only use technical-grade urea, but some of the owners of the plywood units use subsidised agriculture-grade urea as it is cheaper than technical-grade urea.

The team, comprising Dr Manjit Singh Nain, Joint Director from head office of Agriculture Department, Panchkula; Dr Surinder Singh Yadav, Deputy Director, Yamunanagar; Dr Rakesh Kumar Jangra, Assistant Plant Protection Officer, Yamunanagar; and Dr Balbir Singh Bhan, Quality Control Inspector, Yamunanagar; conducted checking in Yamunanagar, Jagadhri and other places of the district on January 16 and 17.

According to information, Dr Nain issued directions to officers of the local Agriculture Department to get the fertiliser dealers registered on the portal of the department by January 20. He directed them to take action against the dealers who fail to get themselves registered on the portal.

He said that fertiliser dealers must use point-of-sale (POS) machines to sell fertiliser to farmers.