Farmers, scientists cold to biotech regulator

With the Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India Bill (BRAI) expected to be tabled in Lok Sabha during the forthcoming winter session, there are hectic parleys going on outside the Parliament. On the one hand the biotech industry, with support from government scientists, are strongly advocating for the release of genetically modified crops like the Bt brinjal, while anti-GM activists are making all efforts to oppose the same.

The BRAI Bill proposes to create a new regulatory body which its opponents claim would be a single window clearance system for genetically modified crops and that it will allow a backdoor entry for multinational corporations’ GM crops into the country. Civil society organisations, legal experts and farmer unions came together on Friday to voice their opposition to the proposed Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) Bill 2011 which they pointed out is a blatant attempt by the Centre to bulldoze the ongoing public debate in India and the serious concerns regarding human health, environmental safety and seedôfood sovereignty issues surrounding the technology of genetically modified (GM) crops.

“The BRAI Bill is a blatant attempt to bulldoze through the public resistance and genuine concerns about genetically modified crops, and to deny state governm-ents their constitutional authority over agriculture and health,” according to Kavitha Kuruganti, convenor, Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture (ASHA) and a member of the Coalition for a GM-Free India. According to Ms Kuruganti, the Constitution is being trampled upon through the Bill. The federal structure of the bill is being threatened by it.

Agriculture is a State Subject. But, through the Bill, the Centre is trying to have a control over a state subject through the back door, she added. The Bill must be prevented form being tabled, said Leo Saldanha, trustee, Environment Sup-port Group, an NGO invol-ved with environmental issues, adding that the bio-tech industry does not have anything to aid the entry of their products into the country and they are desperate.