GUNTUR: Agriculture officials seized loose chilli seeds from a transport office in Andhra Pradesh 's Guntur district on Thursday. Sale of loose seeds is prohibited and procurement of seeds by distributors is illegal. Upon information, a team of officials of the agriculture department carried out a surprise inspection on a private transport parcel office in the town and unearthed the smuggled stocks.Seeds inspector Gautham Prasanna said that they found that Annadata Agrisciences, a seed dealer in Ponnekallu of Tadikonda in Guntur district, procured Teja hybrid chilli stock from SB seeds in Rani Chennur of Karnataka state. He said that they seized 225.8 kg seed from the transport office. Although the suppliers issued receipt for just Rs 1.35 lakh, the original value of the seed would be around Rs 10 lakh, he said. Interestingly, the agriculture officials seized nearly Rs 6 lakh worth seed from another shop only on Thursday.The office sub-ordinate in the agriculture department A Anjaneyulu played key role in detecting and recovering the loose seeds. The sale of loose seeds is not only illegal but also harmful to the farmers as such seeds would not offer have any germination guarantee. The dealers are evading huge taxes by procuring seeds in loose under value invoices. The agriculture department had advised the farmers not to purchase loose seeds from any dealer to avoid future troubles.“As per the rule, manufacturing company should have research and development wing. In this case, SB seeds reportedly do not have any such unit. We are looking into slapping the case on the firm,” said an official. The manufacturer should not supply seed to anyone in loose and is authorized to sell the stocks only with packing. Marketing of loose seeds is a serious crime under the law. The officials registered a case against Annadata Agrisciences of Ponnekallu for procuring seeds by violating the rules.

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