The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (Icar) has developed transgenic plant types of cotton, brinjal (egg plant) and tomato and is now working on evolving similar plants of rice, chickpea (gram) and pigeonpea (Tur or Arhar).
While some of the private multinational companies have already commercialised the transgenic seeds of some of these crops, none of them have yet succeeded in evolving transgenic varieties of gram and Tur, said Icar deputy director-general Mangala Rai in a press conference.
(Transgenic crops, such as the controversial Bt cotton, have genes transferred to them from unrelated species and life-forms like bacteria with the use of modern biotechnological tools. The alien genes are incorporated to lend them resistance against specific pests and diseases.)
Rai said the Icar transgenic plants have not yet been given to the farmers for testing or cultivation. The Icar was trying to develop transgenics of gram and Tur because, like cotton, these crops were also attacked by the Helicoverpa pest (American bollworm).
Rai was briefing newspersons about the four-day international symposium on
