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Aarati Krishnan

CHENNAI, Feb. 15

AS the Centre for Science and Environment findings open a Pandora's box about pesticide residues in drinking water, it resurrects consumer worries about the profile of pesticide products being used in India and the laws governing pesticide use.

It is a fact that the Indian pesticide market is dominated by traditional chlorine and phosphorus-based compounds, quite a few of which have been phased out or restricted in the developed world. This issue has attracted enough ink over the years, to sting the Government into regulatory action. Over the past seven years, 38 pesticide products have been banned for use in agriculture within India.

Yet, several of the pesticides listed by the centre's study as being found in bottled water (Lindane, BHC, DDT) feature in the "blacklist" of products banned for use in agriculture. How does this happen? The answer lies in the fine distinctions that the Government makes while notifying a ban on a product. For instance, though the use of DDT in agriculture is banned since 1996, it continues to be manufactured for exports and used in public health programmes. Lindane, too, is listed as being "restricted for use" in India, but is manufactured and exported in substantial quantities.

In some cases, the Government stops with a ban on a specific formulation of a product. For instance, formulations such as Phosphamidon (85% SL), Methomyl 24% L and Methomyl 12.5% L are banned for import, manufacture and use within India. However, other formulations of these products (in lower concentrations) continue to be manufactured. True, when the Government notifies that a product will be allowed to be manufactured for "restricted use", it specifies that the manufacture should take place in a closed environment to avoid contamination. But such restrictions may be hard to monitor and even more difficult to implement.

In fact, the Central Insecticides Act of 1968 (amended in 2000) contains a set of comprehensive regulations to ensure that no part of the pesticide industry operates outside its watchful eye. Not only is every pesticide product manufactured, imported or used in India required to be registered with the Central Insecticides Board, anybody selling, stocking or distributing pesticide products, also requires a license. The Act also allows the Board to ban or restrict the use of any pesticide product.

It is not as if the Government has not used these powers. In 1996, the Government banned the use of DDT in agriculture and followed it up with a ban on BHC (benzene hexachloride). At the time, these products accounted for a significant proportion of domestic pesticide consumption. It also constituted an expert committee to review 15 pesticides which are "no longer in use in other countries" to explore a possibility of a ban of these products.

Based on this review, the Government announced bans on specific formulations of phosphamidon, Methomyl, and phenyl mercury acetate in 1999. Since then, the review of registered pesticide products has been an ongoing process, with the government regularly notifying a set of restricted or banned pesticide products each year. As on date, the Web site of the Central Insecticides Board (the regulating authority for registration of pesticides) lists 38 pesticide products as being banned for use in agriculture. But, as the expert committee of 1996 pointed out, it is the lack of monitoring agencies, resulting in tardy implementation of many of the regulations, rather than inadequacy of the laws, which is a key point of concern about pesticide regulation in India.

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