‘Tainted’ official part of flying squad set up to check sale of spurious seeds

Vishav Bharti

Chandigarh, July 23

Virtually asking a cat to protect the milk, the government has appointed a “tainted” official in the state-level flying squad to check the sale of spurious seeds and pesticides. The official is being probed for “favouring” scamsters.

The Agriculture Officer, who has been appointed in the three-member flying squad, has been chargesheeted for favouring sellers of spurious seeds and pesticides by stealing confiscated samples and delaying their retesting.

On July 15, the Additional Chief Secretary, Agriculture, Sarvjit Singh, himself issued a chargesheet against Agriculture Officer Satish Kumar for “favouring” the people involved in the sale of spurious pesticides and seeds.

As per the chargesheet, Satish used to save scamsters by not timely getting the retesting of confiscated misbranded samples. Another serious charge against him was that while being posted as Agriculture Officer in Fatehgarh Sahib, he used to steal reference samples from the department record. He was also accused of deleting data stored in computers of the department.

The chargesheet was signed by the Additional Chief Secretary (Agriculture) on July 15. Five days later, on July 20, the same official appointed him in the flying squad constituted to check the sale of spurious pesticides and seeds. This has raised a question mark over the government’s sincerity to check the menace of fake pesticides and seeds, which has become an annual business worth hundreds of crores of rupees.

When contacted, Sarvjit Singh said the order was issued by mistake. “It has been withdrawn.” However, he expressed helplessness in sharing the revised orders.

However, officials confirmed that the orders of Satish Kumar’s appointment were in force as of now as no revised orders had been circulated. The squad includes Deputy Director, Agriculture, Jaswinder Singh Grewal; Chief Agriculture Officer Rajesh Kumar Raheja; and Agriculture Officer Satish Kumar.

Chargesheeted for ‘favouring’ scamsters

• Agriculture Minister Kuldeep Dhaliwal had launched a campaign to check the sale of spurious agriculture inputs
• A 3-member flying squad was set up to raid manufacturers, sellers
• Agriculture Officer Satish Kumar, who is part of the squad, was chargesheeted for ‘favouring’ sellers of spurious seeds and pesticides by stealing confiscated samples and delaying their retesting