MULTAN, May 7: The crops of Kharif season this year are likely to face 20 per cent shortage of the irrigation water initially, but the situation will start improving after June.

This was claimed by the provincial irrigation department officials while briefing a meeting of the Cotton Crop Management Group on the availability of water.

Punjab Agriculture Minister Arshad Khan Lodhi chaired the CCMG meeting, which was attended by senior officials of various government departments, growers and representatives of the business bodies of agricultural inputs like seed, fertilisers and pesticides.

About the availability of pesticides, DPP DG Allah Rakha Aasi informed the meeting that at present products enough for 6.75 sprays per acre were available in the country, which included carryover stocks and the fresh imports. He said the situation was, therefore, satisfactory.

The BT cotton issue was also discussed at length and Central Cotton Research Institute director Islam Gill presented a report drafted by the Federal Seed Certification Department.

Sources attending the meeting said the FSCD presentation in a nutshell was that the government should discourage the present ‘illegal’ pattern of evolving BT cotton seed and its commercial sowing in the country.

However, the growers’ representatives insisted that instead of prohibiting the BT cotton the government should find some ways to encourage research on this type of cotton in the private sector, if the official research institutes had yet to realise importance of the new technology in getting better per-acre yield and, that too, after having minimised the chances of pest pressure and subsequent expenditures incurred to get rid of the menace.

The meeting was told that the fertilisers would be available in quantity (300,000 ton) more than what was on hand last year for the Kharif season.