Collector irked by tardy pace of soil-testing

- Only 971 out of 9,000 soil samples collected are sent to labs
- Directs officials to pump out stagnated water in farm fields

Eluru: West Godavari District Collector K Bhaskar has directed the agriculture officials to take necessary steps to pump out the stagnated water in the farm fields.

While reviewing the progress of priority sectors at a meeting held at District Collectorate, the Collector said that following heavy rains, the nurseries and seedlings have inundated in various parts of the district.

He said, “We have to save the crop by pumping out the stagnated water in the fields. The agricultural officials should act on this.

”Reviewing the soil-testing cards distribution, the Collector said that so far 64,000 cards were issued to farmers. He directed the officials to sanction the remaining one lakh soil-testing cards to the farmers. He also instructed the officials to give much priority to issue the cards and added that the officials should not show any negligence in this regard.

He said that the soil testing cards were useful to the farmer to know about the usage of fertilisers and pesticides to their crops. He instructed the horticulture officials to issue these cards to orchid farmers also. He questioned about the samples sent to the laboratories by horticulture wing. He said that as per records, the officials had collected 9,000 soil samples out of the 16,000 samples and sent only 971 to the labs. He expressed his anger over the horticulture officials by stating that the personnel in the five laboratories had no work with the negligence of horticulture officials.

He instructed the officials to submit a report within 48 hours on the setting up of Rythu Bazaars after identifying the suitable places.

Additional Joint Collector MH sheriff, Chief Planning Officer K Satyanarayana, Agriculture Joint Director Sai Lakshmeswari, Horticulture Assistant Directors Durgesh, Vijayalakshmi and others participated in the meeting.