MULTAN, Nov 9: Permitting import of popular wheat herbicides under generic names this year has brought down their prices by 60 per cent.

The federal ministry of food, agriculture and livestock has recently put some 21 herbicides/weedicides under the import category of form-16 (free for all the import under generic name) through the SRO-96(KE)/2004 after the expiry of their respective worldwide patent rights.

However, the material imported under the form-16 would be subject to the condition that its recipe would be the same as approved when the same was earlier registered on form-1 or form-17 (as the case may be). The form-1 deals with the products registered under brand names, while the form-17 covers the registration of new chemistries.

Soon after the issuance of SRO-96, the importers of popular wheat herbicides have cut down drastically the prices of their respective products. Market sources said that booking orders of the herbicides, which were being booked last year at the prices ranging from Rs950 to Rs1,100 per litre, were being entertained this year at a price as low as Rs360 per litre, while their prices in the international market had been the same as they were last year.

Analysts said the existing importers of herbicides might have cut down the prices only to discourage new players to enter the arena of herbicides business in the wake of marginalized profits because now they were delivering their products to their dealers at about $6 per litre after importing it at $5 per litre.

Growers' organizations have urged the government to put all the pesticides meant for cotton crop on the form-16 under the same principle of expiry of their patent rights because 80 per cent of the pesticides imported were sprayed on the cotton crop. The growers said that in this way their cost of raring the crop would be rationalized to a large extent.