New Delhi, India
January 25, 2008
Source:
CropBiotech Update
India's
Department of Biotechnology
(DBT) has formulated a set of new policy instruments in response
to the increase in the number of field trials being conducted
for several crops with new genes/events by public and private
sector institutions. The DBT initiated an exercise to develop
guidelines for conducting field trials of regulated and confined
field trials of genetically engineered plants in India. The
existing DBT's revised guidelines for research in transgenic
plants and guidelines for toxicity and allergenicity evaluation
of transgenic seeds, plants and plant parts was introduced way
back in August 1998.
The new draft policy instruments include:
1). Draft Guidelines for
the conduct of confined field trials of regulated,
genetically engineered plants in India,
2). Draft Standard Operating Protocols (SOPs) and Recording
Formats for confined field trials and
3). Draft Protocols for assessment of toxicity and
allergenicity in transgenic crops.
The draft policy instruments are
available for public comments at the Indian GMO Research
Information System (IGMORIS) website at
http://www.igmoris.nic.in/.
Send comments and suggestions to Dr KK Tripathi, Advisor,
Department of Biotechnology at:
kkt@dbt.nic.in.
For more information about biotech
in India contact Bhagirath Choudhary of the International
Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA)
South Asia Center at
b.choudhary@isaaa.org. |
