Punjab Chief Secretary Azam Suleman Khan on Saturday presided over a meeting to review strategy to combat locusts in different districts of the province.
The meeting was attended by senior member Board of Revenue, secretary Agriculture, DG PDMA, and officers concerned whereas divisional commissioners and deputy commissioner joined the meeting through video conferencing.
Speaking at the meeting, the chief secretary said that relevant departments would have to adopt dengue-like strategy and work on emergent basis to deal with possible attack of locusts. Officers should remain in the field and coordinate with local farmers and allied departments like forest and PDMA to save crops and livestock from locusts attack. He assured that all cooperation would be extended to meet requirements including availability of machinery, pesticides and aircrafts for aerial spray.
The Agriculture secretary and PDMA DG briefed the meeting that during last three months out of total 70,700 hectares area in Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar and Rahim Yar Khan, spray was done on 42,360 hectares through land routes while aerial spray was carried out on 800 hectares of area.
