To ensure quality and traceability while curbing spurious sales, the government is likely to introduce the Seed Bill in parliament in the forthcoming budget session, an agriculture ministry official said on Sunday.
“We have received over 9,500 inputs or comments on the draft seed bill and we are analysing these comments. The target is to introduce it in the forthcoming season of parliament,” Devesh Chaturvedi, secretary ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare, told FE.
The draft Bill, 2025 was put for public consultation till December 11, 2025.
The proposed legislation unveiled in November, last year was aimed at incentivising investment in research and development (R&D) by ‘genuine’ players while bringing in much-needed regulation in the sector, major seed associations have stated.
The new legislation will replace decades old Seed Act, 1966 and the Seed (control) order, 1983. Earlier several attempts have been made to introduce changes in the existing provision of legislation.
“Our key focus is that farmers get quality and high yielding seed at remunerative prices, we will be bringing the proposed legislation in the parliament soon,” agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said in a briefing on Sunday.
Currently India’s seed industry is estimated at $ 3.82 billion.
The draft bill seeks to regulate the quality of seeds and planting materials available in the market, ensure farmers’ access to high-quality seeds at affordable rates, curb the sale of spurious and poor-quality seeds, protect farmers from losses, liberalise seed imports to promote innovation and access to global varieties, according to an official note.
It stated the proposed legislation safeguard the rights of farmers, ensuring transparency and accountability in seed supply chains, according to an official note.
Regulatory Shift
Under the existing provisions, certification of seeds is not mandatory while private players are currently selling seed as ‘truthfully labeled’. This type of seed does not come under the purview of the department of seed certification.
The objective of the legislation was to ensure traceability through registration of seed companies and regulating prices.
The Bill proposes mandatory registration of seed varieties, while in the existing legislation there was no provision of compulsory registration. However, existing varieties notified under section 5 of the existing Seeds Act, 1966, shall be deemed to be registered under the new law.
Decriminalizing Compliance
The proposed legislation aims to decriminalise minor offences to ease compliance burden while retaining stringent penalties for serious violations. Selling inferior quality seeds could invite a penalty of Rs 30 lakh and imprisonment for up to three years.
It proposes stringent penal provisions and has offences in three categories — trivial, minor and major. Among the major offences are supply of “any spurious seeds”; supply of seeds of non-registered kind or varieties; and “doing the Business without registration as dealer or distributor or producer or seed processing or plant nursery”.