Divisional Commissioner Silwat Saeed directed the agriculture department to implement a comprehensive strategy to curb the hoarding and black market sale of fertilizers and stated that strict action should be indiscriminately taken against the accused.
Chairing a meeting on Sunday, she said that the government was making strenuous efforts to facilitate the farming community and fertilizers should be made available to the growers at fixed rates.
She said that some elements were involved in the illegal storage of fertilizers so that they could create an artificial shortage of this commodity to mint money. These elements later sell the fertilizers in the black at excessive rates.
Agriculture officers and their teams were ordered to remain active in the field and to take stern action against fertilizer dealers involved in illegally hoarding and selling this commodity.
She also tasked the Agriculture Director to strictly monitor the performance of agriculture teams so that fertilizers, especially Urea and DAP, could be made available to farmers at government-fixed rates.
Director Agriculture Chaudhary Abdul Hameed informed the Commissioner that agriculture teams inspected 1,282 stores, warehouses and shops during the past 3 weeks.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 11th, 2023.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ