GM CROP INDECISION WILL COST INDIA DEAR

The GM crop indecision will cost India dear

The majority recommendation of the Supreme Court-appointed Technical Expert Committee (TEC) favouring an indefinite ban on the field trial of genetically modified (GM) crops has again revived an issue that has been hanging fire for about three and a half years.

With the jury still out on whether the ideological opponents or the scientific supporters are going to have the last laugh, researchers working in this field continue to be caught in uncertainty.

While state governments are not granting them permission for field trials for further research, the Centre has not told them to give up either.

The fact that judiciary will take a decision on this complex scientific issue based on the advice of a clutch of scientists is an outcome of the abdication of its duty by the political executive to steer the direction of GM crop research in India.

If Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is to blame for failing to take a decision, this way or the other, since February 2010 when then environment minister Jairam Ramesh put Bt brinjal commercialisation in deep freeze despite regulatory approvals, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has done little apart from crying foul and pleading helplessly with state governments to allow field trials in their states.

The ministers who have held Science and Technology portfolios in this time — and there have been a few — have not indicated much interest.

Neither has current Environment Minister Jayanthi Natrajan shown any urgency in following up on the unilateral requirements stipulated by her predecessor from the government on this issue.

Forget a decision, the government has not demonstrated initiative to even reach a consensus on the least common ground for researchers to continue or discontinue their work.

GM crop research, consequently, has been left hostage to activists who have forged a united front against it, with its fate resting on the argumentative skills of lawyers based on suggestions of a few scientists.

This indecision may not cost immediately, as much as the uncertainty over regulatory clearances for roads, power, mining and other infratstructure sector has hurt the country in the past few years of the UPA-II government. However, India will certainly lose out in the long term. 

Ravish Tiwari 

Ravish is a senior assistant editor based in Delhi

THE INDIAN EXPRESS