THE Sindh Seed Corporation (SSC) was established to produce, procure, process and market high-quality seeds of major crops, like cotton, rice and wheat, across Sindh. The corporation made efforts to achieve the purpose for which it was established through its eight agriculture farms spreading over 6,450 acres of land, and seed processing plants across five districts of the province.

However, after a period of 25 years it gradually failed to meet the targets because of inefficiency, corruption and political interference. As a result, the corporation, instead of being a self-sufficient organisation, became dependent on government funding.

In 2006, efforts were made to rehabili-tate the corporation through special financial grant by the Sindh government. In order to curtail non-development expenditure, an exercise was carried out for downsizing, and 91 posts were abolished under the voluntary golden handshake scheme (VHS).

The government grant also provided the much needed help for procurement of inputs for the farms. However, efforts to activate the corporation lasted a few years, and soon it became an entity which neither gave positive results, nor was able to pay salaries to its staff. This happened because a large number of individuals were hired either on contract basis or daily wages. Besides, there was no proper on-field supervision, and mismanagement became rampant.

In Sindh, an individual having land worth 1,000 acres is regarded as a landlord, whereas SSC, which owns more than 6,000 acres, has failed to achieve the objectives for which it was established despite having processing plants and government support. The failure of SSC created a vacuum in the market, leading to the emergance of several private seed companies, offering timely supply of seeds of better quality.

During last one decade, the government has weighed different options regarding SSC revival to either make it a financially viable organisation, or closing it down with the proposal to assign its functions to the research wing of the Agriculture Department. At present, the SSC is unable to pay arrears of its retired employees, salaries to its existing employees, and to meet its day-to-day expenses. The government also appears not quite serious about addressing the issue as SSC has remained without a regular fulltime managing director for the last one year.

It is high time the government took a firm decision to restructure the SSC, engaged professional management with expertise in agriculture and seed tech-nology, introduced corporate governance principles of accountability and trans-parency, collaborated with research institutions, and offered buy-back contracts to farmers for seed multiplication.

There is an immediate need to develop climate-resilient and high-yielding seed varieties, and to upgrade seed processing plants. The possibility of public-private partnership should also be explored to make SSC financially self-sufficient.

Shams Jafrani
Karachi

Published in Dawn, October 27th, 2025