Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah has said that his government was making efforts to provide quality certified seed of improved varieties to the growers at an affordable price to improve per acre yield.
He said this while presiding over a meeting of Sindh Seed Corporation (SSC) at the CM House. The meeting was attended by Senior Minister for Finance Syed Murad Ali Shah, Minister for Agriculture Ali Nawaz Maher, chief secretary Siddique Memon, Principal Secretary to CM Alamuddin Bullo, Secretary Agriculture Shahid Gulzar Shaikh, Managing Director SSC Dr Iqbal Saeed and others.
Shahid Gulzar Shaikh briefing the chief minister said that there were eight basic seed farms of SSC. They include 2898 acres Lodra (Shikarpur district) Farm, 372 acre Pai Sakrand (Nawabshah) Farm, 1041 acre Setharja (Khairpur) Farm, 122 acre Kotdiji (Khairpur) farm, 1474 acre Ghotki Fram, 112.27 acre Ruk (Ghotki) farm, 100 ace Sangi (Sukkur) farm and 110 acre Lakhi (Shikarpur) farm.
Managing Director of SSC Dr Iqbal Saeed said that different seed varieties have been provided to growers. The wheat varieties provided so far are TD-I, Kiran 95, Imdad 05, SKD-I and Benazir. IR -3701 of cotton and two varieties of paddy, Irri-6 and KS-282.
He said that during the last four years (2011-2015) Rs140.266 million have been spent on all the eight farms for developing seed varieties against which Rs286.448 million were earned.
Similarly, Rs507.484 were spent on the marketing of the seed against which Rs638.004 million income was generated. In other words during the period the SSC utilized Rs647.751 million against which an income of Rs924.452 million was generated. The net profit has been calculated at Rs276.701 million.
