The Environment Ministry has no information whether the global seed giant Monsanto is luring parliamentarians to foreign trips, Rajya Sabha was informed today.
"This Ministry has no information on whether M/s Monsanto is luring parliamentarians to foreign countries on the pretext of study tours," Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said in a written reply.
Stating that the government has not overruled the recommendations of Genetically Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), he said the bio-tech regulator has recently approved 12 GM crops' experimental field trials for the purpose of generating bio-safety data including brinjal and rice subject after submission of NOC from the concerned state governments.
"Currently six confined trials are going on after getting NOC from the state governments of Maharashtra, Punjab, Gujarat and Delhi for three GM Crops namely cotton, maize and mustard.
"All field trials are subjected to stringent norms such as maintaining a crop specific isolation distance from the periphery of the experimental site; biological barrier, submission of a validated event specific test protocol and post-harvest restrictions," the Minister said.
