Swaminathan compliments Kerala on endosulfan ban
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COMMENTS 
M S Swaminathan, the architect of India’s Green Revolution, has put his weight behind the ban imposed by the Kerala Pollution Control Board on use of the pesticide endosulfan
Renowned agriculture scientist M S Swaminathan has complimented the Kerala government for its decision to ban the use of endosulfan, adding that other states too should analyse the risks and benefits of the chemical and take a decision on its ban.
Swaminathan said the Centre did not want to impose a nationwide ban on the pesticide without consulting state governments. The bottom line for the policy should be the health of men, women and children, he said, adding that a precautionary principle should be adopted.
Speaking on the sidelines of the sixth Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning, in Kochi, Swaminathan said he had been advocating a ban on the use of the pesticide in Kerala for a long time.
“There is no need for any new commission to study the health impacts of endosulfan,” he said. “There are a large number of risks. That is why even the United States has banned it.”
The Pollution Control Board in Kerala has banned the use of endosulfan in any form as it has allegedly caused deaths and triggered diseases among villagers in Kasaragod district, in the past few years.
People in Kerala allege that the pesticide has claimed over 400 lives and turned more than 9,000 people into victims of a host of diseases in the state’s northernmost Kasaragod district.
Wells, tanks, streams and soil in 11 panchayats of the district are contaminated with the pesticide which was sprayed from the air for over two decades, since 1980, over 4,500 acres of cashew plantations belonging to the state-owned Plantation Corporation of Kerala.
Children in the area were born with a number of congenital health disorders; diseases caused by the pesticide include cancer, reproductive disorders, early maturing of females, late maturing of males, physical deformities, mental retardation, etc.
As the public outcry against endosulfan intensified, the state government banned it in 2000. But the move proved futile as the chemical continued to be used after being smuggled in from neighbouring states. This makes a national ban all the more necessary.
The Union government holds that no study has so far linked the health problems seen in Kasaragod to endosulfan, and that no ban is possible without studies and discussions with other states.
India is one of the largest manufacturers and users of the pesticide in the world. If no alarms are being raised in Punjab, where fields are contaminated by up to 18% of the endosulfan used in India, Assam, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka it is because no serious studies have yet been carried out there.
Over 60 countries have banned the use of endosulfan; most of the nine studies conducted in Kasaragod refer to the pesticide as “a killer”.
Source: The Hindu, November 26, 2010
The New Indian Express, November 26, 2010
The Pioneer, November 26, 2010
Press Trust of India, November 25, 2010