About 50 lakh packets of Herbicide Tolerant (HT) Bt cotton (about 24 lakh kg) worth ?300 crore are in circulation in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Maharashtra, according to the National Seed Association of India (NSAI), which says that this money is being siphoned off from legal business and goes into the hands of illegal players. Illegal HT seeds are contaminating breeding material and parent lines of the seed companies, especially those selling BG2 cotton seeds, and State governments are taking action against licensed seed companies if HT genes are found even in a few lots of seeds.“Now, HTBt cotton is pegged at about 15-20 per cent of total cotton cultivation. These 50 lakh packets of HTBt cotton seeds (of 450 gm each) are making a dent into seed companies’ revenues. ?300 crore is going to illegal players selling HTBt seeds, causing a huge loss to cottonseed sector in India,” Indra Shekhar Singh, Director-Policy and Outreach, NSAI, told BusinessLine. He added that the cotton seed economy is being disrupted because of flourishing illegal HTBt trade. The government must take immediate steps to stop the circulation of these seeds and initiate action against companies marketing them. The panel found that unapproved cotton was grown, on an average, on 15 per cent of the cotton-cultivable area in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Telangana, and 5 per cent in Punjab during the 2017-18 season.This year, again, the Sanghatana has launched a similar drive and claimed that about 25 per cent of the State’s total cotton is under HT cotton, while in Telangana nearly a tenth of the cotton crop is covered by HT cotton grown on about 5-6 lakh acres.