Admitting that all the environmental and bio-safety tests on Bt Brinjal in the country were done at private laboratories,Minister for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh said here on Tuesday that he had taken up the issue of setting up a full-fledged laboratory with the Centre. He said he also discussed the issue of setting up a National Biotechnology Regulatory Authority to formulate proper guidelines for commercial cultivation of food crops in the country. The minister made these comments while speaking to mediapersons at the end of a public meet called National consultation on Bt Brinjal organised jointly by the Ahmedabad-based Centre for Environment Education (CEE) and MoEF. This was the third consultation session after the ones held earlier in Kolkata and Orissa. The next sessions on the issue will be held at Hyderabad,Bangalore,Nagpur and Chandigarh. After various stakeholders,including representatives of farmers,seed companies,farm activists,environment groups and scientists from different agricultural universities expressed their views on commercial cultivation of Bt Brinjal,Ramesh said their concerns could not be overlooked while taking a decision on the matter. Speaking about the fears that the government might allow commercial cultivation of the food crop under pressure from multinational seed companies like Monsanto,which was lobbying actively for Bt Brinjal,he said the decision will not be taken in haste or under any pressure'. He further said,The final decision in the matter will be arrived at Bt brinjals bio-safety test done in private labs: Rameshafter consulting all the stakeholders. Ramesh said he has sought the opinion of the chief ministers of all states,scientists and biotechnologists so that his ministry can decide on the issue by February 20. The final decision will be totally transparent and not in camera, he said. He further said,If the government feels there is some health risk in allowing Bt Brinjal,it can ban it as has been done in some countries. The minister also referred to Punjabs Bhatinda town where underground water had high presence of pesticides resulting in a high incidence of cancer. He said the state governments of Orissa,West Bengal and Bihar,which together account for 60 per cent of brinjal production in the country,had already expressed their opposition to commercial cultivation of Bt Brinjal. Gujarat government representative R S Sersaiya told the minister that there was a difference in Bt Cotton (a non-food crop),which was approved by the state government,and Bt Brinjal (a food crop). The principles of precaution,Serasiya said,were needed to be applied in the case of Bt Brinjal. Gujarat Vidyapeeth Vice-Chancellor Sudarshan Iyengar demanded a moratorium on commercial cultivation of Bt brinjal for minimum five to seven years or till a proper bio-safety test of the food crop is done in a standard laboratory. Iyengar said initially,the production of Bt Cotton increased. Then it came to a plateau,and then it went down. He said a similar thing had happened in the case of Shankar-4 and Shankar-6 hybrid cotton varieties,and hence,approval to Bt Brinjal cannot be given on the basis of high production. While environment activists opposed the introduction of Bt Brinjal,the representatives of seed companies supported the idea. On the other hand,the scientists were divided on the issue. While Anand Agriculture University (AAU) scientist K B Kathiria and Balakrishnan from Tamil Nadu Agriculture University (TNAU) did not find any fault with Bt Brinjal,others like J Manjrekar from M S University,Chinu Srinivasan from Vadodara and K J Mehta strongly opposed the introduction of the food crop.
