Mahyco hearing next week: Agri dept

The case pertains to complaints from farmers in Beed district that they were reportedly being overcharged for the Bt cotton seeds in May.

Raising the issue in the Assembly through a calling attention motion,MNS legislator Uttamrao Dhikle alleged that some of Mahyco’s distributors,instead of supplying over 45,000 packets of seeds to sub-dealers,indulged in black-marketing of the seeds at a higher price to dealers outside the district.

Dhikle said the distributors raised bogus bills to hide the malpractice in sale of seeds worth nearly Rs 8 crore.

Mahyco is one of the larger players in the Bt cotton seeds business.

About 90 per cent of cotton cultivated in Maharashtra’s four million hectares is Bt cotton. Vikhe-Patil told the Assembly in his response that a complaint was filed in Beed and investigations are underway.

It had come to notice that while 45,800 packets of seed were supplied to 10 distributors in Beed in April for the Kharif season of 2012,only 920 of these packets had been distributed to farmers.

The rest had been allegedly sold by the distributors to farmers directly without informing the Agriculture Department officers.

While Dhikle had sought a CID probe into the alleged black-marketing,the minister promised action,if necessary,against the company.

When contacted,a spokesperson for the company said they were yet to receive any formal communication on the matter from the state agriculture department.

“Mahyco is a law-abiding company and,since its inception,has continually strived to provide high quality seeds for improving the productivity and profitability of all farmers,” the spokesperson said.