New Delhi, Sep 2 (IANS) A civil society group Friday urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to withdraw the Biotechnology Regularity Authority of India (BRAI) bill, saying it lowers the bar for safety assessments for Genetically Modified (GM) crops.
The ‘Alliance for Safe Food’ in a two-page letter urged the prime minister not to allow tabling of the bill in parliament as it was drafted without consulting the common people.
‘GM is an imprecise and unpredictable technology and it is a risky technology whose safety is not yet established,’ the letter said.
The group requested the prime minister to create a statutory mechanism to protect the sustainability and safety of food and farming in India in a participatory manner.
The bill seeks to create a new body to regulate research, manufacture, import and use of products of modern biotechnology.
