Govt allows study of several GM food crops

India's bio-tech regulator is back in business with it allowing studies on new genetically modified food crops such as mustard, rice, pigeon pea and groundnut.

Updated on: Aug 14, 2011, 24:12:18 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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India's bio-tech regulator is back in business with it allowing studies on new genetically modified food crops such as mustard, rice, pigeon pea and groundnut.

The Genetic Engineering Appraisal Authority (GEAC) had gone slow on allowing trails of GM food crops after former environment minister Jairam Ramesh had imposed moratorium on BT Brinjal in 2010.

The GEAC, in its first meeting after Ramesh was made rural development minister, on Wednesday allowed trials and studies for second generation GM food crops. The move is being seen as the UPA government bid to promote biotechnology, considered a pathway to India's food security problems.

As of now, the GEAC has allowed commercial cultivation only of GM cotton, not food crops. The first GM food crop to be allowed was BT Brinjal in 2009. Another food crop, BT rice, is at the advanced stage of trials.

In a departure from earlier decisions, the GEAC allowed selection trials of pulses such as pigeon pea, tur and red gram.

"It is first step towards developing GM varieties of these seeds," a government official said.

In India, the production of pulses has not increased even though its consumption has jumped manifold over the years.

The GEAC has also agreed to allow selection trails of groundnut containing tobacco streak virus cost protein gene developed by International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT).

The regulator has also given permission to conduct environment safety studies for developing transgenic varieties of mustard in Delhi.

To give boost to rice production in the country, the GEAC has allowed selection trials -preliminary study - for many varieties of GM rice.

According to officials, it is just initiation of the process for developing GM varieties of these food crops, which may take few years before these varieties are allowed for commercial release.

However, before conducting these trials the companies will have to take permission from the respective state governments.

"It is a new pre-condition imposed for conducting any GM trials," the official said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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