June 09, 2008	Monday	Jamadi-us-Sani 04, 1429

VEHARI, June 8: Substandard and expired pesticides and chemicals continue to be sold in the district and adjoining areas with the alleged connivance of agriculture department officials.

Several farmers and agriculturists have complained that spurious chemicals, which have flooded the market, are not only creating health problems for humans, but also threatened grower-friendly pests and birds.

Talking to Dawn, some farmers said three departments of federal and provincial governments — plant protection, pest warning and quality control of pesticides, and agriculture extension — were responsible for implementing the ban on prohibited pesticides and fertilisers, but they had failed to fulfill their responsibility as the banned products were being sold openly by the companies and their dealers.

They also accused the pesticide inspectors and other authorities of being lax and indirectly helping the illegal trade.

The agriculturists asked the government to collect samples of pesticides for chemical analysis and take strict action against those dealing in substandard and expired products. Recently, a junior clerk of the agriculture department, Abdul Ghafoor by name, was caught selling Endosulfan, a banned pesticide.

The Danyal police seized over 90 bags of the pesticide from Ghafoor’s residence at 9/WB. On an application by the agriculture department senior officials, the police registered a case against him, though they didn’t mention his link with the agriculture department. The suspect has been sent to jail on judicial remand.

According to a source, the banned pesticide had been manufactured by the Pesticides Formulation Laboratory, Lahore, in 1976. Later in 1980, Endosulfan and many other pesticides were declared expired all over the country and the government banned these.

He said the expired pesticides were stored in almost all districts in the Punjab in the custody of agriculture authorities. In Vehari, a large stock of expired pesticide (Endosulfan) is still lying in the agriculture department godown at Danywal.

The source said some officials of the agriculture department had been perpetrating sale of the expired product since 1980, as “they steal it from the godown and give it to dealers”.

When this correspondent met Abdul Ghafoor in Danywal police station lockup, he claimed: “I didn’t sell this expired pesticide, though I stocked some quantity at my residence.”

Hearing about Ghafoor’s arrest, the source said, the dealers who had purchased the expired pesticide from the clerk had gone into hiding.

Deputy District Officer (Agriculture) Safdar Ali told Dawn that the department had suspended the junior clerk (Ghafoor) and was holding an inquiry against him. If proved guilty, the clerk would be terminated, he said.

He said few districts in the Punjab had recently disposed of in Cholistan stocks of expired pesticides and Vehari administration would undertake a similar exercise on the Punjab government order.

As for the involvement of the department officials in the trade, he denied with the claim that the junior clerk’s is the first case of such malpractice in the department.