Horticulturedept pesticides found in well

The incident came to light after a few members of the public, who had seen dumping of boxes brought in a vehicle belonging to the Agriculture Department in the well, informed a few media persons. When MP Nalin Kumar Kateel and ‘whistle blower’ Hanumanth Kamath visited the spot and enquired about the same with the officials of the Horticulture Department, the incident came to light.

Soon afterwards, Deputy Commissioner V Ponnuraj visited the spot. In the subsequent developments, the members of the fire brigade were pressed into service.
Though many pesticides and fertiliser found in the well had expired, the expiry date of one particular pesticide was March 2011.

Minutes later, the Deputy Commissioner inspected all the godowns of the Horticulture Department where large quantity of products were found. Interestingly, though large quantity undistributed products were found, fresh stocks too were lying in the godown.
Speaking to media persons, Deputy Commissioner said that a detailed enquiry will be conducted into the issue and only after that, the value of the seized fertiliser and pesticides may be ascertained.

“It appears that there is a misappropriation as the fertilisers and pesticides meant for distribution to farmers were not distributed,” he said.

On the other hand, Horticulture Department Deputy Director Hema said that she had asked the staff to dump only those products whose term had expired.