Women carrying fodder for their cattle from a mustard field on the outskirts of Srinagar. file | Photo Credit: Reuters
The Alliance for a GM-Free India, a platform that is fighting a case against GM in the Supreme Court genetically modified mustard, issued a report To display at least 15 instances of alleged regulatory lapses in the evaluation and approval of GM “Herbicide Tolerant or HT” mustard, Delhi University on Friday in New Delhi.
The forum alleged that the Center was trying to mislead the Supreme Court by saying that there was no regulatory lapse in the development of GM mustard. Forum officials said that without issuing a formal approval letter, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) jumped into the picture on behalf of a third-party applicant to ensure that the seeds were planted in “great haste”. Citing Right to Information (RTI) replies, he said no health expert ever participated in the evaluation of GM mustard. They argued that the testing of GM mustard for environmental safety violates the limited guidelines/protocols laid down in the country’s regulatory regime.
Their report states that the approval of GM HT mustard demonstrates a “total failure” of the country’s limited biosafety regulations and also serious deficiencies in the regulatory regime. The report said: “Health and environmental safety have been seriously compromised in the approval of GM mustard. The constitutional authority of the state governments on agriculture has been violated and sidelined and the states were not even consulted The way they were in the case of Bt brinjal. India, a signatory to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, has also violated international commitments in approving GM mustard. The Indian government and regulators have clearly stated their intention to ban HT crops in India. For this, the science-based recommendation of the Technical Expert Committee of the Supreme Court has been ignored and disregarded.