Dir Agri inaugurates upgraded pesticide quality control lab at Lal Mandi Srinagar

Srinagar: Director Agriculture Kashmir Syed Altaf Aijaz Andrabi Thursday inaugurated upgraded pesticide quality lab here at Lal Mandi.
The laboratory has been equipped with high quality GLC and UV vis Spectrophotometer which is capable of analysing Hexaconozole 5% EC and Melathion.
With the augmentation of these high-tech equipments, the pesticide analysing capacity of the laboratory has reached to 23 molecules from 18 molecules.
Director said in the quality control lab, quality parameters of fertilizers/pesticides/insecticides will be tested with great precision and accuracy. The products which are found of low grade, misbranded are ordered for stopping the sale through Law Enforcement Agency and also given wide publicity in print and electronic media through Information and Publications Wing Directorate of Agriculture.
Andrabi, said the department is utilizing all its efforts to increase the efficiency and capacity of the quality control lab at Lalmandi, so that more number of samples and more number of molecules of pesticide formulation can be analysed on various quality parameters and the use of spurious pesticides by various dealers can be stopped.
Meanwhile, Agriculture Chemist informed that they are having a trained staff for quality analysis, among them two are specially trained from PFA, National Institute of Plant Health Management (NIPHM) Hyderabad for testing quality parameters of Insecticides/Pesticides and now our strength of testing has reached upto 23 molecules and we have set to achieve the goal of testing upto 32 molecules for which the purchase of more number of high tech equipment is under way.