Taking note of serious threat of Pink Ball Worm to cotton crop the Additional Chief Secretary of Agriculture and Farmers
Taking note of serious threat of Pink Ball Worm to cotton crop the Additional Chief Secretary of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Department, Dr. Sumita Misra has directed to…..
Chandigarh, March 23 – Taking note of serious threat of Pink Ball Worm to cotton crop the Additional Chief Secretary of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Department, Dr. Sumita Misra has directed to the field staff to complete the farmers awareness campaign and ensure cleaning of old cotton sticks/piles and fumigation of cotton ginning factories and oils mills in the State by 31 March. She has also reviewed the action plan of the Department for controlling the Pink Ball Worm.
Sharing information in this regard an official spokesperson of the Department said that taking note of the said threat the Department has already covered about 85% of the villages of cotton growing districts and educated the farmers of the area concerned through Kisan Melas, Gosthies and trainings by involving CCS HAU, Hisar and Private Firms.
Besides this, the department has also chalked out a weekly programme activity calendar to increase area under cotton cultivation and to implement various advisories throughout the cropping season for batter production.
Dr. Hardeep Singh Director General, Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Department is leading the Department campaign of cleaning the old stock of cotton sticks in the villages and fumigation of cotton factories, he said. The Director General has also fixed a meeting on March 24, 2022 of all the Cotton Ginning & Pressing Factories owners, officers of Cotton Corporation of India, Sirsa and field officers to review/monitor the progress of the activities in this regard.
The spokesperson further added that cotton is mainly grown in districts of Sirsa, Fatehabad, Hisar, Bhiwani, Jind, Sonipat, Palwal Gurugram, Faridabad, Rewari, Charkhi Dadri. Namaal, Jhajjar, Panipat, Kaithal, Rohtak and Mewat. During previous season cotton was grown on an area of 15.90 lakh acres and it was infested with Pink Ball Worm to some extent in few pockets of the State and losses in the yield were noticed. Now, the Department of Agriculture has fixed a target of 19.25 lakh acres for the Kharif 2022 season.
Among other initiatives being taken the spokesperson said that special emphasis has been given for the management of the Pink Ball Worm to avoid yield losses. Also, the Department has already issued advisory to all cotton Ginning and Pressing factories to ensure fumigation of their premises and even an advisory flax board has been displayed in the premises of the said firms. The license of these firms shall be renewed after the compliance of fumigation advisory and producing certificate thereof, he added.
The spokesperson elaborated that the Department of Irrigation has also been requested to make arrangements for timely canal water supply in the cotton growing districts so that the sowing can be completed in short spell of time across the state which can reduce the impact of Pink Ball Worm in later stages. The Agriculture Department has also made an arrangement of around 60 lakhs packets of Bt cotton seed which is adequate as per State requirement.
No. IPRDH/2022
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