Rules and renegades
Pesticides are regulated under the Insecticides Act of 1968 and Insecticides Rules of 1971. In May 2000, the Insecticide (Amendment) Bill 2000, was passed under the shadow of suicide deaths of farmers because of spurious pesticides. This amendment made the punishment for adulterated pesticides more stringent. But it did little to clean up the regulations to register pesticides and to monitor this poison industry. The insecticide act regulates the import, manufacture, sale, transport, distribution and the use of insecticides to prevent any risk to people and animals. The registration committee, constituted under Section 5 of the act, registers an insecticide after verifying its efficacy and safety to human beings, animals and the environment. The Central Insecticides Board (cib) based in Faridabad, Haryana, advises the Union and state governments on technical matters. In 2001, a total of 2,718 applications were received for registration, of which 1,439 were approved, according to the government.
Basically, there are two types of registration under Section 9 of the Insecticides Act