Chandigarh, July 25 -- Soon sale of spurious seeds will be a non-bailable offence in Punjab.
Punjab Cabinet on Friday gave its consent to introduce The Seeds (Punjab Amendment) Bill 2025 to make sale of spurious seeds a non bailable offence.
A decision to this effect was taken by the Council of Ministers in its meeting held here under the chairmanship of the Chief Minister today.
Disclosing this here today a spokesperson of the Chief Minister's Office said that the Cabinet gave its consent to introduce The Seeds (Punjab Amendment) Bill 2025 to ensure supply of high quality seeds to the farmers of Punjab.
There has been no amendment in Section 19 of the Seeds Act 1966 since inception due to which the fines and penalties have no deterrence.
So the Cabinet gave the nod to enact a Bill to amend the Seeds act and insert Section 19A for contravention of Section 7 of Seeds Act (Regulation of sales of seeds of
notified kinds or varieties), enhancing the fine and penalty, making it cognizable and non-bailable.
The Cabinet also gave competition for developing a mechanism to provide land parcels (on sale or lease basis) for promoting industrial/business investment in the State.
The move is aimed at further giving impetus to the investment in the state.
Pertinently, there was a lack of formalised, time bound mechanism for
identifying and provisioning land parcels for investors seeking land.
So, a comprehensive mechanism has been given nod with features like bi-annual
digital land pool, Investor Facilitation for investment above Rs 200 crore, feasibility check, reserve price fixation, e-Auction process, Lease option, Auction timelines and others.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.