LAHORE: Caretaker Minister of Industries, Trade and Energy S.M. Tanveer says Punjab is taking all possible steps to ensure the supply of quality agriculturalinputs to the farmers to achieve the production targets this year.

He was presiding over the 56th session of the Punjab Seed Council on Friday.

In the meeting, 56 new varieties of agricultural commodities of publicand private sector were approved, which included varieties of paddy, hybrid maize, oats, gram, groundnut, rye, sunflower, sesame, barseem, dates, wheat and cotton.

The minister gave approval for the general cultivation of 56 new varieties while seeking DNA fingerprint reports of seven different crop varieties within 15 days.

He issued directions for establishment of a sub-committee `Green Revolution-H` to review the problems faced in various types of crops. He congratulated agricultural scientists for developing these varieties and urged them to further improve the research trials.

He directed the officials to make variety registration and DNA fingerprinting mandatory for the approval of agricultural commodity types.

Mr Tanveer said the current government was paying special attention to the production of quality seeds to increase the agricultural production per acre with world-class seeds, which would also increase domestic exports.

On the occasion, the secretary agricultureemphasized introduction of modern harvesting technology. He urged the agricultural scientists to discover varieties that could be profitable for five years or more in the field while keeping production costs low. He said new varieties of crops were being prepared so that the attack of diseases could be minimised and the agricultural production per acre could be increased.

While giving instructions to maintain the quality in discovery of new types of agricultural commodities, he said instead of discovering more types, such types should be discovered which could give better results in the field.

The agriculture secretary declared the DNA fingerprinting report mandatory to protect the rights of pure seeds and breeders` rights.

Punjab Agriculture (Marketing) Special Secretary Kulsoom Hai, Punjab Seed Corporation MD Shanul Haq and a large number of members and breeders from public and private sectors were present in the meeting.