NEW DELHI: Complying with the Supreme Court’s July directive, civil society groups and environmental activists have written to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), seeking widespread consultative processes for evolving a national policy on Genetically Modified (GM) crops.
More than 250 signatories demanded that public consultations be well publicised in local languages in all prominent local newspapers, visual media and websites, giving at least three weeks’ notice to the public to respond and keep it open for all without any partisanship.
On July 23, after nearly 20 long years of hearings in a batch of petitions questioning the country’s regulatory regime with regard to GM Organisms, the Supreme Court delivered a split verdict from a two-judge bench.
It refused to conclude whether Delhi University’s GM mustard is herbicide tolerant or not and sent the matter to a larger bench.
However, both the judges ordered that the government organise public consultations, preferably within the next four months for formulation of a national policy.
Previous example
Addressed to the Secretary Leena Nandan, the letter underlines previous public consultation done by the UPA government’s minister Jairam Ramesh in 2009 during environ-mental release of GM crop Bt Brinjal between October to December 2009.