The Punjab Additional Secretary of Agriculture (task force) has told his officials that all legal formalities should be fulfilled while inspecting pesticides and fertiliser samples. Ahmad Ali Zafar, who chaired a meeting of inspections teams of Multan, Dera Ghazi Khan and Bahawalpur on Monday, said laboratories set up at formulation plants of those inputs for analyses of pesticide and micro-nutrients should also be checked and legal action should be taken against those not meeting the required standards.
He also directed that fire extinguishers, warehouses, formulation and refilling plants and safety equipment also be checked during inspection and that every member of the inspection team played his or her practical role to complete inspection process in a transparent, just and impartial manner. He said all those warehouses should be sealed where doubt of storing fake pesticide emerged till the time report of samples taken from them was received.
It emerged that inspection team of the Multan Division of the agricultural task force had inspected 38 pesticides and fertiliser manufacturing companies and took 49 samples of pesticide and 22 samples of fertilisers. While in Bahawalpur Division, 11 pesticides and fertiliser manufacturing facilities were checked and 51 samples of pesticides and 20 samples of fertilisers were taken. Similarly in Dera Ghazi Khan, team inspected 40 manufacturing facilities and took 36 samples of pesticides and fertilisers. All these samples have been sent to laboratories for complete analysis, the meeting was further informed.