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| Agri Minister’s probe on seeds proved dud | | | Early Times Special
Jammu, Aug 24: The Agriculture Minister, Mr Ghulam Hassan Mir, had asked the Vice-Chancellor of Sher-i-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technlogy-Jammu (SKUAST-J) to inquire into allegations from farmers that inferior maize seeds were provided to them.
Speaking in the Legislative Assembly on August 3, Mr Mir had directed the V-C to complete the inquiry within 15 days. A week ago, on August 18, the stipulated time for completing the probe, as promised to the Assembly, lapsed.
Mr Mir had given the assurance and orders for inquiry on a question asked by the National Panthers Party (NPP) legislator, Mr Harsh Dev Singh. In fact, Mr Singh had demanded that the guilty be punished as the farmers were likely to suffer huge losses due to the supply of inferior maize seeds.
The information department had issued a press release DI/PR/09/1075/ah/mk on August 3, on the subject and the same has been reproduced, verbatim, here for the benefit of the readers.
On 24th morning, when Mr Harsh Dev Singh was contacted in Srinagar, he said that he had not received any report from the agriculture ministry on the subject. Mr Singh also said that he will take up the issue with Mr Mir again to know the status of the inquiry.
There are some questions that the press release forces one to ask. The foremost among them is whether something said by a minister on the floor of the House carries any meaning or weight?
The answer can be only in the affirmative as otherwise it would mean that the minister was misleading the House and he had no intent on actually carrying out an inquiry.
The other question is: Did the minister or senior agriculture ministry staff issue the necessary orders to the V-C of SKUAST-J for carrying out the inquiry?
The V-C could not, suo motu, in the absence of a clear written or verbal order or communication, initiated an inquiry of such nature.
It would be interesting to know the results of the inquiry, if any, that was conducted subsequent to Mr Mir’s declaration to this effect on the floor of the House.
On August 3, the minister was apparently doing a bit of fire-fighting on behalf of the government. The order for the inquiry was meant to pacify the legislators and deflating their allegations against the government.
The information department officials covering the proceedings of the Legislative Assembly duly recorded the minister’s statement. They also issued a press release stating the minister’s stance on the issue.
Till date, the follow-up press release, which should have given the results of the inquiry, has not been issued.
Incidentally, on the same day, the Doda-Udhampur MP, Mr Lal Singh, and the Roads & Buildings minister, Mr G M Saroori, had declared in Kathua that they will take up the issue of damage to crops with the government. The damage to crops has happened in all the five tehsils of Kathua district due to both drought and the alleged supply of inferior quality maize seeds.
Maize is cultivated in large parts of the state, particularly in un-irrigated areas of Kathua, Poonch, Rajouri and the hilly districts of Doda, Kishtwar and Ramban. Thousands of farmers depend on this crop for their livelihood and it forms staple food of a large part of population.
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