Jaipur, June 4 -- At least five spurious seed producing factories in Sriganganagar's RIICO area were sealed by agriculture minister Kirodi Lal Meena on Tuesday after taking action against at least 32 more factories across Ajmer, Beawar and Kishangarh in last one week for producing spurious fertilisers, officials familiar with the matter said. "These companies have been selling fake seeds of moong dal, radish, bajra and wheat by adding colours, marbles etc in the local and also inter-state markets in Haryana. A raid was conducted in their places on Tuesday during which at least 20,000 bags of such fake seeds were seized. They were making these seeds at Rs.50 and were selling at a cost of Rs.250. We have sealed those companies and informed the local police station to lodge an FIR," Meena told reporters. Earlier, Meena and his team sealed 32 companies for making spurious fertilisers in their factories for the last 10 days. "Upon receiving the information, I conducted a sudden inspection in those factories. This action will be continued as more such factories are under our lens. So far, we have spotted at least 32 factories in Ajmer, Kishangarh and Bawar. The first information report (FIR) was also lodged against 13 of them to initiate a legal action," the minister said. "After such products are found, we are seizing these companies and informing the local police. They are lodging the FIR against each of them gradually," he added. An official list of the drive from the minister's office revealed that most of these factories are based in Ajmer and produce Phosphate Rich Organic Manure (PROM) fertiliser and vermicompost, biofertiliser. An official from Meena's inspection team said: "They had been mixing marble and granite powder in these fertilisers to keep the production cost cheaper and make them look like the real fertiliser. An average of 8,000 to 10,000 bags each consisting of 40 kg fertiliser have been seized from every factory during the drive. It was found that they had been making these products at a minimum cost of Rs.200 to Rs.400 and selling them at Rs.2,000 to Rs.3,000 to the farmers." Amid the minister's action against such factories, the Union government sought a detailed report from the Rajasthan government on Monday regarding the factories which have been sealed by cabinet minister Kirodi Lal Meena after they were found producing spurious fertilisers and seeds. Union agriculture minister and Ajmer MP, Bhagirath Chaudhary, said, "Most of these companies were licensed during the previous Congress government between 2018 to 2023. But no action was taken. Our cabinet minister in the state is now taking action against those factories. The Union government has now also sought a detailed report on these factories and the actions that have been taken to have a better picture of their networking in other states where they used to sell the product." "We will also write a letter to every other state in India to conduct a similar inspection across their factories and seal the ones who are producing fake fertilisers, seeds, and pesticides. We will always take strong action against the ones who are harming the interest of our farmers," he said. He further said that the government also suspects involvement of higher officials in this matter. "Such an activity is not possible to run over the years smoothly without the help of any officer. They must be hand-in-glov with them. We are probing the matter and trying to identify those officials. Necessary actions will be taken," he added. In response to the Union minister's remarks, Congress spokesperson Swarnim Chaturvedi said, "The probe against those factories have pending for two years Which is majorly after the BJP came to the power. Why did they delay the probe ?"...