The Sindh Seed Corporation, which was closed down in the year 2001 under the advice of the Asian Development Bank, has once again been made functional from Rabi 2005-06 and during coming Kharif 2006 it would be fully operational to produce cotton and paddy seed.
In his written reply to a question from Humera Alwani of the PPP, who wanted to know whether SSC was functional or being converted into a corporation/ institution, the chief minister, Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim, on behalf of the Sindh Agriculture Department informed Sindh Assembly on Friday that it had been revived.
In the year 2000 the Asian Development Bank had come up with the proposal of Agriculture Sector Programme Loan-II to accelerate, strengthen and co-ordination of agriculture support services with certain policy matrix.
One of which was regarding closure/divestiture of SSC. Sindh Cabinet in its meeting held on 16-02-2001 agreed for closure of SSC. Accordingly the Seed Operation was stopped by SSC. The chief minister said that the government realising the importance of SSC agreed for its revival as more efficient and loan disbursement organisation.
Its revival has been approved by the CM Sindh and agreed by the federal government too. It has started functioning from Rabi 2005-06. It is mandatory function of the SSC to multiply prebasic seed produced by the Agriculture Research Sindh for production of basic seeds at Corporation farms.