Pesticides in veggies; Delhi govt says it has limited

The Delhi government today told the Delhi High Court that it has limited infrastructure in the laboratories for testing pesticides in fruits and vegetables but has chalked out plans to inform the public about its side effects.
The Delhi government submitted that currently only 28 varieties of pesticides can be tested in its laboratories.
The city government in its affidavit submitted that a "Pesticide Residue Management Cell (PRMC)" has been constituted under the control of the Food Commissioner and it has also translated the information in Hindi, Gurumukhi and Urdu.
Perusing the submissions by the state government, the division bench of acting Chief Justice B D Ahmed and Justice Siddharth Mridul asked the govt to file a supplementary affidavit detailing steps which it intends to take for expanding its infrastructure.

The court also asked the Ministry of Agriculture to file an affidavit within four weeks regarding long and short-term measures to minimise the harm and make people aware about the "ways and means" to deal with the situation.
The court directed amicus curiae Sanjay Jain to go through the steps taken by the state government and give his suggestions on the next date of hearing, May 21.
"Prima facie, it appears that some short-term measures have been taken by the NCT government although we find that with regard to sample-testing of fruits and vegatables on monthly basis, the report of the government is not to our satisfaction," the bench said.