GM Crops Presentation - Indian Academy of Sciences

. India needs an independent authority to evaluate and approve thetrials as well as to monitor the performance of GM crops in the fieldaftercommercialization.A unified National Biotechnology Regulatory Authority (NBRA) is underconsideration. The bill pending since 2005 is likely to be taken up in theparliament for debate. I feel that the regulatory authority to evaluateand monitor transgenic crops in experimental fields and the one thatperforms a regulatory function after commercialization should bedifferent. GEAC can continue to perform the former function and giveapproval for commercialization. GEAC has evolved over several years ofexperience and, perhaps, it is not a good idea to disband the same. Itmay need some more fine tuning. Thus, these two authorities can be twoarms of NBRA in the Agriculture sector. The biggest challenge is to createindependent and dedicated experimental facilities to monitor andevaluate GM crops. Till such a facility comes into existense, the existinglaboratories in different institutions have to be net-worked to provideindependent experimental capabilities for NBRA.