AgriMin asked to hold wide-ranging consultation before banning 27 pesticides in India: Gowda

Fertilisers Minister D V Sadananda Gowda on Tuesday informed the Lok Sabha that his ministry has asked its agriculture counterpart to hold wide-ranging consultations with stakeholders before banning 27 pesticides.

Asked if his ministry has objected to the Agriculture Ministry's draft order, "Banning of Insecticides Order 2020", notified on May 14 this year, the minister replied in negative.

"No. Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers has requested the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare to hold wide-ranging stakeholder consultation before finalizing the Draft Order...," he said in a written reply to the Lower House.

The draft order proposes ban on 27 pesticides for import, manufacture, sale, transport, distribution, among others.

Replying to another question on whether the government ignored the recommendations of Anupam Verma Committee's report that reviewed 66 insecticides and pesticides which were barred or restrictions were put on their use in 112 countries, the minister said, "Banning of a particular pesticide by a few countries based on some studies somewhere may not provide enough ground to take similar action in India without having adequate scientific evidence in Indian context."

If a chemical poses unmanageable and unacceptable risk to human and animal safety or the environment, it may be banned after due socio-economic impact assessment, he said.

"Any such chemical evaluation should be done using a risk-based (not hazard based) approach which considers exposure for assessing risk to the human and animal health & environment due to specific use of the chemical," he added.