MULTAN, Oct 27: With Only four days have left to the implementation of amended agriculture pesticides rules, 1973, but the federal agricultural ministry has yet to give final touches to the proposed rules.

In the ‘hurriedly-called’ 37th meeting of the agricultural pesticides technical advisory committee, held on October 4 last with Minfal secretary Salik Nazeer Ahmed in the chair, the finalization of the amended rules was on the agenda besides the review of the pesticides availability in the face of pest attack on cotton fields of Punjab and consideration of a herbicide for registration.

A Minfal official, who did not want to be named, told Dawn that the reservations and objections raised by the Punjab agricultural department and representatives of the associations of the pesticides importers and formulators came under discussion at the 37th Aptac meeting.

He said the objections were mainly over restrictions on bulk sale of pesticides, warranty of strength and quality and exclusion of the dealers from any responsibility on account of quality and standard. He claimed that after an exhaustive debate the Minfal secretary deferred further discussion on the subject and directed to convene another meeting of Aptac in the last week of October to decide the matter once for ever.

He claimed that it was decided in the meeting that the secretary would form a sub-committee to look into the revised law and rules. “But neither a meeting of Aptac has so far been convened nor has the secretary constituted any sub-committee to dispose of the objections over the proposed pesticides rules,” he maintained.

However, some of the Aptac members contradicted that there had decided to either defer debate on the SRO or form a sub-committee to look into the revised agricultural pesticides rules, 1973. It is further learnt that a number of Aptac members have expressed their reservations over the minutes of the 37th advisory committee meeting claiming that some of the issues are ‘twisted’ to put off implementation of the amended pesticides rules.

Salient features of the proposed amended pesticides rules, which are to be implemented from November 1, are: the importers/formulators should themselves undertake repacking/refilling of pesticides in retail packing before passing to distributors and dealers for sale, the importers should give legal warranty to the distributors or dealers (as the case may be) at the time of delivery, all the registered pesticides should be sold under the local brand names and standardization of the strengths of various pesticides with a direction to withdraw all other formulations of these products.

The proposed rules, if implemented, will also bind the pesticides firms to give the same price on the label which they cited in the invoice while paying government duties and taxes.