LAHORE, June 24: Governor Punjab Lt-Gen Khalid Maqbool (retired) ordered on Monday a “save the crop” drive by a task force comprising the police and agriculture experts.

The governor was chairing a meeting convened to ensure provision of quality pesticides and fertilizers to farmers. No one found guilty of selling or manufacturing spurious pesticides or other farm inputs, he said, should be spared.

He also instructed the authorities concerned to explore the possibility of establishing summary courts to deal with such crimes.

The meeting also reviewed the possibility of locally producing the pesticides by importing the active ingredients.

It was told that the adulterates could be jailed for three years and fined up to Rs5 million. The government, has so far, collected over 17,000 pesticides samples. Out of these 768 were found spurious.