Forest Minister Benoy Viswom has criticised the stand taken by India against global ban on Endosulfan at the sixth meeting of Persistent Organic Pollutants Review Committee to the Stockholm Convention at Geneva last week.
“India’s stand was not right. The general consensus at the meeting was in favour of the ban. India should have supported that view,” the Minister told The Hindu on Monday.
Mr. Viswom said that the Indian government should not have become the ‘spokesman’ of the pesticides lobby at the meeting. “If you go to Kasaragod, you can see the effect of Endosulfan on the people. Many of the affected were in such a condition that they could be described as the living dead.”
He added that when corporate companies were marketing Endosulfan for profit at the cost of lives, the Central government should have stood by the people of the country. “It is high time that the Centre accepts the truth (about Endosulfan) and stands for the welfare and future prosperity of the country.”
It may be recalled that only India had opposed the proposal for ban on Endosulfan at the committee meeting attended by 29 member countries. With four countries abstaining, the committee recommended ban on manufacture, use, import and export of Endosulfan with certain exemptions to the Conference of Parties of the Stockholm Convention. India dropped out of the discussions towards the end and did not participate in voting. This is also officially recorded as an abstention.
Mr. Viswom had earlier written to Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh urging him that India should take a stand in favour of the ban at the meeting.
He recalled that the chemical, used indiscriminately in the cashew plantations in Kasaragod district for years, had caused serious and chronic illnesses, which forced the Kerala High Court to intervene in the matter in 2002, leading to imposition of a ban in Kerala.