Jun. 2, 2020
Thrissur-headquartered Pesticide action network(PAN)-India has welcomed the Centre's recent gazette notification to ban the 27 pesticides.
The NGO, working against use of pesticides, fungicides and insecticides in crops, has urged the agriculture ministry to review all the remaining pesticides registered in India with the same criteria used for assessing the 27 chemicals and come up with stringent regulatory measures, including a possible ban of more hazardous pesticides.
The central notification says ‘sixty-six insecticides which are banned or restricted or withdrawn in other countries but continue to be registered for domestic use in India’ were reviewed by an expert committee set up by the agriculture ministry.
The ministry considered recommendations of this committee and recognized that use of the ‘twenty-seven insecticides are likely to involve risk to human being and animals as to render it expedient or necessary to take immediate action’.
The draft order has a list of 27 pesticides with decision of the government for each of them. Many of them are highly hazardous pesticides with potential to cause severe health effects such as hormonal changes, neurotoxic effects, reproductive and developmental health effects, carcinogenic effects, as well as environmental impacts such as toxic to bees.
Kerala has already banned some of these pesticides such as monocrotophos, carbofuran, atrazine, etc back in 2011 on the grounds of public health concerns.
Responding to the draft notification, Jayakumar Chelaton, director-PAN-India said that many of the pesticides proposed for ban are implicated in both occupational and self-poisonings in India.
Banning them is expected to bring down poisoning incidences and ensuring a safe working farm environment in the country. “We are happy to support government of India for eliminating toxic pesticides by replacing them with agro-ecological farming practice,” he said.
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