Bathinda: There is no proposal for research and approval of Bollgard-3 (BG-3) cotton seeds and no such request has been received from Punjab govt, states an answer in Rajya Sabha by Union minister of state for agriculture and farmer welfare Bhagirath Choudhary on Friday.
AAP’s Rajya Sabha MP and former cricketer Harbhajan Singh had asked whether govt is working on any proposal for research and approval of next-generation BG-3 cotton seeds, considering increasing pest attacks on cotton crop and whether Centre has received any request from Punjab govt to speed up the approval for BG-3 cotton seeds.
Concerns have been raised over the quality of BG-2 cotton seeds over successive pest attacks, which has made the crop acreage decreasing even less than 1 lakh hectares in Punjab.
