DADU, Oct 15: The red-leaf and other diseases have infected the cotton crop in the district, causing damage to crop on hundreds of acres of land.

Small growers of Johi, Khairpur Nathan Shah, Mehar, Sehwan and Dadu talukas complained that spurious pesticides were being sold in the district with the connivance of officials of the agriculture department.

They said field assistants and agriculture officials were not visiting the affected areas to help growers to control these diseases. A grower from Mehar taluka, Mushtaq Mahesar, said a huge budget was allocated by the district government for the agriculture department but officials were not visiting affected villages.

He said red-leaf and other diseases were spreading in Mehar taluka for the last 20 days which had badly affected cotton crop in the taluka. Another grower, Luqman Khushik of the Dadu taluka said diseases had spread in the cotton crop after the recent rains.

He said he had used pesticide to control the disease but they proved ineffective. Mian Mohammad, a grower of Deh Mad said the officials had not checked any pesticide shop in the district, where he alleged, that fake pesticide were being sold to gullible growers.

He said Dadu, Sehwan, Khairpur Nathan Shah, Johi and Mehar talukas were the worst affected because of the red-leaf disease. The growers of Khudabad, Bhan Saeedabad, Phulji, Sita, Moundar, Makhdoom Bilawal areas appealed to Sindh Chief Minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim to constitute a high-level team to look into the sale of fake pesticides in the district.