ASHA-Kisan Swaraj’s feedback on the Pesticides Management Bill 2025 (PMB 2025)

You can look at, and download the response of ASHA on Pesticides Management Bill 2025 here: https://kisanswaraj.in/wp-content/uploads/Pesticides-Management-Bill-2026-ASHA-feedback.pdf

The following are the key points that need to be addressed in the Bill in terms of drastic revisions required, when tabled in the Parliament:

1. The objective of the Bill to be stated in the Preamble should be to promote ecological pest management solutions rather than be a clearing house for applications for registrations of synthetic pesticides.

2. State Governments should be authorised to prohibit particular pesticides within their jurisdictions on reasoned grounds. Prohibition for only one year, and ban authority with the Central Government are violative of India’s Constitution.

3. A compensation fund should be set up, to give effect to the “Polluter Pays” principle, and by using that fund and any other additional allocations from a Cess to be collected, all affected persons should be entitled to ex-gratia and compensation amounts. Where required, the fund should be used for remediation also.

4. Registration should be preceded by sound Needs & Alternatives Assessment.

5. “Other ingredients” should be put through the same kind of testing for safety and efficacy as the active ingredient.

6. No registration should take place without MRLs being notified and TMDIs being notified.

7. Provisional Registration for three years is completely unacceptable and should be deleted.

8. All pesticides registered should automatically come up for Review every five years, as well as whenever more than two other countries ban a pesticide on environmental and health grounds.

9. Review of registration and continuance of a pesticide should be done by a Review Committee and not by the Registration Committee which registered the pesticide in the first instance.

10. Poisoning related surveillance systems should be strengthened through numerous statutory mechanisms, which have been suggested in our detailed response.

11. A single adjudicating officer in each state is an unhealthy way of shaping the regulatory regime, which requires all offences to be dealt with in a deterrent fashion. Adjudicating Committees, which also include farmers’ representatives should be set up.

12. Compounding of Offences should not be allowed at all.

13. Pesticide advertising and aggressive marketing should be strictly curbed, and should be specified in the mandate of the Board.

14. All biosafety data that forms the basis for registration should be proactively published in the public domain for wider scientific scrutiny.

15. There should be no conflict of interest, and no revolving doors in the regulatory regime, and any bias towards the pesticides industry should be avoided.