Cola toxins: Full flow in India, tight leash abroad

According to the government’s Central Insecticide Board, production of Malathion (used to prevent malaria) has gone up from 870 tonnes in 1995 to 1,200 tonnes now. Chlorpyrifos (against termites): from 1,400 tonnes to 4,500 tonnes over the same period.

Lindane and DDT are meant only for municipalities to kill mosquitoes, hence no production figures are available. A World Bank study pegs the DDT use in India at 1,000 tonnes in 10 states responsible for 85% of malaria cases.

While in the West, pesticide use is governed strictly on the constant-review-and-recall principle, here it’s just the opposite.

Take the case of Chlorpyrifos: after serious birth defects were attributed to this in the US in 2000, Dow Chemicals was forced to withdraw Dursban (Dow name for Chlorpyrifos) from residential use—even when WHO levels were being adhered to. Now the US Environmental Protection Agency is working towards a complete phase-out by 2005.

In India, Chlorpyrifos is the fourth most popular insecticide—pumped indiscriminately in building foundations for termite control. It is available with every pest control agency without any regulation on how much to use and for what kind of rot.

Similar is the case with DDT and Lindane. Though they are in the ‘‘restricted’’ list in India, they still find their way into the fields.

The Central Insecticide Board is supposed to meet and review the use of pesticides regularly. A telling comment on its effectiveness is that the notification issued based on its last review meeting in July 2001 is still lying in the files.

FAO clearly lays down that every country should know what pesticide is going where and in what quantity. India does not have a single conclusive study on pesticide residue impact on human health.

So sources in CIB admit they depend solely on standards set by different agencies like WHO, FAO, USEPA, FDA and the EU.