Secretary Agriculture Punjab Wasif Khurshid has said that the department is striving hard to achieve target of cotton production of 10 million bales. He was speaking at the 4th meeting of Cotton Crop Management Group (CCMG) here the other day. A spokesman of the department said that the meeting was attended by Fatima Benish Sahi, Additional Secretary Agriculture (Task Force), Prof Dr Asif Ali, Vice Chancellor Muhammad Nawaz Sharif Agriculture University Multan, Noor-ul-Islam, CEO Parb, Dr Abid Mahmood, Director General Agriculture (Research), Dr Sageer Ahmad, Director Cotton, Member Agriculture Commission along with other participants.
The Secretary Agriculture further said that department is acting on zero tolerance policy against adulterated pesticides and fake fertilizer sales.
In this regards, the pesticide inspectors since January 2018 conducted five raids and registered five FIRs besides confiscating more than million adulterated pesticides.
Wasif Khurshid disclosed that the government has provided approved varieties of cotton seed up to 50% subsidized rate and also providing subsidy voucher of Rs 700 per cotton bag to core area of cotton growers and more than 22,000 farmers have benefitted from it.
More that Rs 14 million is being spent for provision of agricultural machinery to cotton growers. During the session, Syed Zafaryaab Haider, Director General Agriculture (Ext), Dr Khalid Abdullah, Dr Sageer Ahmed, Director Cotton, Dr Zahid Mahmood, Chief MEPCO and representatives of Metrology Department also briefed the participants.