LAHORE: The Secretary Agriculture Punjab Iftikhar Ali Sahoo on Thursday directed the provincial agriculture department to acquire services of NESPAK to ensure quality of ‘Super Seeders’, being manufactured to be provided to the paddy growers.

The manufacturing of the super seeders is part of a project launched by the provincial government to provide super seeders and rice straw shredders to 700 farmers at 60 percent subsidy to promote mechanization in the rice crop. This will be first phase of the project which aims to provide 50,000 such machines to the growers.

The Secretary of Agriculture also directed his technical team to monitor the process of manufacturing of super seeders and regular report of maintaining the quality during the manufacturing should be submitted to his office.

Iftikhar Ali Sahoo was presiding over a meeting to review the Chief Minister’s plan for agriculture here on Thursday held at the agriculture house. He observed that the standards set by the government should be followed during the production and delivery of machinery.

Secretary Agriculture said that the programme for establishment of Model Agri Malls in Punjab province has also entered the final stage. Apart from this, the plan for rehabilitation of Kinnow has been finalized. He further said that practical steps are being taken to increase the cultivation and production of canola in Punjab. The aim of promotion of soyabean and canola is to reduce the import bill.

In the meeting, Director General Agriculture (Extension) Chaudhry Abdul Hameed, Director General Agricultural Information Punjab Naveed Asmat Kahloon, Director General Agriculture Field Engineer Sohail Ahmed and Chief Planning and Evaluation Cell Muhammad Asif Qureshi and other officers participated.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024