Feb 14, 2020
· The Bill proposes to make safe and effective pesticides available for farmers
· Companies may be asked to pay fines or compensate for loss caused due to pesticides
In the current budget session of Parliament, the government is all set to accommodate the Bill to promote safe and effective pesticides and insecticides.
“The new draft bill is aimed at protecting the interest of the farmers, so that they get safe and effective pesticides. Farmers would be empowered to get all information regarding the available pesticides, their strength, weaknesses, and risks from the dealers they choose to purchase the pesticide from,” environment minister Prakash Javadekar said after the Union cabinet approved the Pesticide Management Bill, 2020.
The bill hopes to swap the existing Insecticide Act, 1968, which the government stressed is “age-old and needs immediate re-writing”. This bill comes in the lieu of rising concern over the need to protect farmers from bogus and sub-standard pesticides, addition to that the bill also needs to assess the effects of the pesticides on the health of people and environment.
Any individual who wants to manufacture, deal in pesticides or want to import or export them would have to register under the new bill and providing all the details regarding expected performance, safety, efficacy, usage instructions, any claims and infrastructure available to stock and store those pesticides. The information will also include details on the pesticide’s effects on the environment.
“The bill also has a provision to provide compensation if there is any farm loss because of low quality or spurious pesticides. The penalty collected from the manufactures/dealers and funds put in by the government would be used to form a central fund,” said Javadekar.
“All the information regarding the available pesticides would be available in the public domain, in all languages in digital format, so that farmers can make the right decision on their use”, the minister said.
The bill also plans to control pesticides-related advertisements to check misleading claims by industries and manufacturers. “No farmer should be cheated or given spurious pesticides,” said Javadekar, adding that the bill also in favour to promote organic pesticides.
“The draft bill has the opportunity to clean up the food and farming system of our country, but needs to make the registration process more stringent for manufacturer”, said Kavitha Kuruganti, founder, Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture, a farmers’ advocacy group.
“We need a complete overhaul of our registration process for pesticides, so that new registrations happen only when there is need and no safer alternatives exist. The setting up of a compensation fund offers hope for farmers affected by poisoning, but they should not be compelled to take recourse to the Consumer Protection Act to claim compensation,” said Kuruganti.
India is among the leading producers of pesticides in Asia with highest consumption recorded from the state of Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Haryana.
The cabinet has also given a green signal for the tabling of the Ports Authority Bill, 2020, in the current session of Parliament. The bill replaces the existing Major Port Trust Act, 1963, and aims to provide more operational self-sufficiency and flexibility to all the major ports of the country, allowing them to take decisions faster at the port level. This would be done by establishing a Board of Major Port Authority for each major port, which will be entrusted with powers of administration, management and control of these ports.
“The situation has changed over the last few decades. Many private ports have come up. We need a system for taking fast decisions and ensuring fast development of our ports and maintaining world-class standards,” said Mansukh Mandaviya, the minister of state for shipping.