ToxicsWatch
To
Shri Surendrajeet Singh Ahluwalia
Union Minister of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare
Government of India
New Delhi
Date: January 13,
2017
Subject- Appreciation
for your decision to ban 18 pesticides & demand for phase out of
organophosphate-containing insecticides like Monocrotophos as part of the remaining 48 pesticides whose use cannot be justified
Sir,
This
is to express our appreciation for the Notification dated December 15, 2016
published in the Gazette of India by the Union Ministry of Agriculture and
Farmers Welfare (Department of Agriculture, Co-operation and Farmers Welfare)
that announces your decision to ban manufacture, import, formulate, transport,
sell and use of 18 of the 66 pesticides which are still registered for domestic
use in India but banned or restricted in one or more other countries due to
health and environmental concern.
While
we welcome the announcement of ban on hazardous pesticides like Benomyl,
Carbary, Diazinon, Fenarimol, Fenthion, Linuron, Methoxy Ethyl Mercury Chloride
(MEMC), Methyl Parathion, Sodium Cyanide, Thiometon, Tridemorph, Trifluralin,
Alachlor, Dichlorvos, Phorate, Phosphamidon, Triazophos and Trichlorfon, we submit
that the non-inclusion of Paraquat Dichloride and Glyphosate, highly hazardous
herbicides in the decision is a significant omission which must be promptly
remedied. As you aware Paraquat Dichloride has been banned in the State of
Kerala but it continues to be used in the remaining parts of our country. It is
noteworthy that Paraquat Dichloride is a candidate for the Prior Informed
Consent (PIC) list of UN’s Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent
Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International
Trade. The use of Paraquat Dichloride is banned in Switzerland, which the home
country of Syngenta, the main producer of Paraquat Dichloride since 1989 due to
its high acute toxicity for humans. It is banned or disallowed in some 32
countries due to its adverse health effects. Glyphosate has been classified as
a carcinogenic chemical by World Health Organisation (WHO).
We
demand phase out of the remaining 48 pesticides as well because their continued
use cannot be scientifically and medically justified. As a best scientific
practice to safeguard the health of Indians government should initiate a
process to review all other pesticides registered for use in our country for
their adverse impact of environmental and occupational health in rigorous
coordination with ministries of health, environment, consumer affairs and
chemicals in order to come up with specific remedial actions.
Pursuant
to our letter dated September 21, 2016 in the matter of failure of Central
Insecticide Board in Bihar insecticide tragedy and phase out of
organophosphate-containing insecticides like Monocrotophos, we submit that
similar action is required for organophosphate-containing insecticides and all
the 48 pesticides.
You may recollect
that Monocrotophos, the insecticide was responsible for the Mid Day Meal
tragedy on July 16, 2013 at the Dharma Sati Primary School Mashrak, Chapra in
Saran district, Bihar and the failure of Central Insecticide Board. We are
saddened to note that instead of recommending ban on this toxic chemical Dr.
Anupam Verma headed expert committee has unwisely allowed its continued use by
stating that its status is “to be reviewed again in 2018, after completion of
the recommended studies”.
In a significant
and related development, on August, 29, 2016, Shri Vijay Anand Tiwari,
Additional District Judge II of Saran (Chhapra) Court, Bihar in a 49 page long
verdict sentenced Mina Devi, Gandaman primary school principal to 10 and 7
years imprisonment in connection with the 2013 midday meal tragedy, in which 23
children had died after eating soyabean vegetable. The court makes mention
of Monocrotophos, the pesticide in question and underlines that the
food that caused the death of 23 students was contaminated with this pesticide.
The verdict is available at
Although Gandaman primary school principal has been
sentenced to 10 years jail term under IPC sections of 304 (culpable homicide
not amounting to murder) and seven years under section 308 (criminal
negligence) and fined her with Rs 2.5 lakh under Section 304 and Rs 1.25 under
Section 308, the fact remains the manufacturers, sellers and regulators of
pesticide have remained out of the scanner so far. The poisonous pesticide in
question was kept at home for spraying on sugar cane crops. The institutional
responsibility for availability of such a toxic substance lies with the
regulator. In such cases manufacturers and sellers should also be held
accountable.
It is high time our country stopped
transboundary movement of hazardous chemicals by creating an inventory of
hazardous chemicals besides conducting an environmental and occupational health
audit along with the ministry of health to ascertain the body burden through
investigation of industrial chemicals, pollutants and pesticides in umbilical
cord blood. In one such study in the US, of the 287 chemicals detected in
umbilical cord blood, 180 were known to cause cancer in humans or animals, 217
are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 208 cause birth defects or
abnormal development in animal tests.
Absence of such studies in India does not mean that a similar situation does
not exist in India. Until and unless we diagnose the current unacknowledged
crisis, how will he regulatory bodies predict, prevent and provide remedy.
Currently, our country is a victim of the unfolding Lawrence Summers Principle.
Lawrence Summers, former director of the White House's National Economic
Council for US President Barack Obama as a World Bank chief economist, sent a
memo to one of his subordinates justifying transfer of harmful chemicals from
developed countries to developing countries.
Our decision makers should factor in these malevolent motives of
international financial institutions, foreign companies and governments.
We submit that our ecological space is
a living entity but it is faced with the cannibalistic propensities of
illegitimately totalitarian scientism which is married with political
consensus. Its linear, piecemeal and closed technological thinking fails to
acknowledge that no unlimited development is possible in the nature of things.
We express our support to you in
resisting the influence of lobbying through their objections or suggestions by industry
associations which give priority to profit over any human and environmental
cost.
In view of the
above facts and the ongoing food chain poisoning, we earnestly and solemnly
urge you to intervene urgently to get to the bottom of the insecticide tragedy
to take the issue of the tragedy to its logical end by banning
organophosphate-containing insecticides like Monocrotophos, Paraquat Dichloride, Glyphosate and other pesticides to protect public health of the present and future
generations.
Thanking You
Yours faithfully
Dr Gopal Krishna
Editor, ToxicsWatch
Mb: 09818089660, 08227816731
Cc
Shri Radha Mohan
Singh, Union Minister of Agriculture
Chairman, Central Insecticides Board,
Union Ministry of Agriculture
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