The Rajasthan government will set up a Seed Vigilance Committee to ensure qualitative and quantitative availability of seeds to farmers, the state Assembly was informed on Monday.
The Committee will take up complaints on poor quality seeds distributed to farmers in last three years and report to the government, Agriculture Minister Prabhu Lal Saini told Rao Rajendra Singh (BJP) in reply to a question. Saini also said that following a preliminary inquiry on alleged poor quality seeds distribution of Moong and Groundnut, the General Manager of Rajasthan State Seed Corporation has been put on "awaiting posting order" for dereliction of his duty.
Plant manager at Banswara office of State Seed Corporation Dalsingh Garasia was also served a notice, he said. On ruling BJP and Opposition Congress members' supplementary questions, he further assured that the existing Agriculture Act, 1959 and 2011 would be reviewed by the legal experts to amendments.
The payment of AP-Oil Federation worth Rs 6.35 crore was stopped on the alleged poor quality seed supply of ground nut, the Minister said. On another question of National People's Party member Geeta Verma, the Energy Minister GS Kheenvsar announced in the house that Rajasthan would not only be self-reliant in power generation, but also be "surplus" by August next.
BJP government as promised public in its manifesto would provide uninterrupted power supply to farmers for 8 hours for agriculture purpose, he said. On a supplementary question of K L Meena (NPP) whether the state government would reduce the power tariff to fifty per cent per unit on the Delhi Government's pattern, he said once the Transmission and Distribution losses along with debt burden of three power companies were reduced, the government could consider the formula adopted by Delhi Government.
As the power minister made a direct allegation on an Independent MLA Hanuman Beniwal that he was enabling farmers to run 1000 tube well in his Kheenvsar Constituency without legal connections, the house witnessed uproar and counter-allegations between ruling and opposition members for about five minutes.
During Zero hour, the Agriculture Minister told the house that a proposal for fencing the crop would be sent to Central government to allow the work to be done under MGNREGA scheme. About 340 lakh hectares of agriculture land in Rajasthan was linked with forests where wild animals do damage crops and also hurt human population, so it was essential to put fencing with under the MGNREGA, he added.
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