(a) the measures being taken to make available the bio-technological products to the farmers; and
(b) the amount spent on each of such measures during the last three years and the number of farmers benefited by these products, State-wise?
(a) the measures being taken to make available the bio-technological products to the farmers; and
(b) the amount spent on each of such measures during the last three years and the number of farmers benefited by these products, State-wise?
MINISTER OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AND OCEAN DEVELOPMENT(PROF. MURLI MANOHAR JOSHI)
(a) & (b) : A Statement is laid on the Table of the House.
STATEMENT IN RESPECT OF STARRED QUESTION NO. 294 TO BE ANSWERED ON 10/12/2002 REGARDING AVAILABILITY OF
BIO-TECHNOLOGICAL PRODUCTS
For Research & Development in the area of agriculture biotechnology including transgenic plants, tissue
culture, biofertilizers, biopesticides, and animals and microbes, a strong infrastructure has been set up.
National Containment-Cum-Quarantine Facility for transgenic planting material and National Facility for
Virus Diagnosis and Quality Control for tissue culture plants for testing and certification and biosafety
regulations along with the mechanisms of implementation under the Environment Protection Act-1986 are in
place. A National Plant Genome Centre in New Delhi is working on genomics of plants covering in particular
nutritional aspects.
Recently, 3 Bt. cotton hybrids expressing Cry1Ac gene have been approved for commercial cultivation and
seeds of these hybrids were made available to the farmers during Kharif 2002 for cultivation in over 70,000
acres in six states namely Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.
A high yielding bold seeded and shatter resistant mustard variety - Pusa Jaikisan developed through tissue
culture has already been released in the country, which has become very popular among the farmers of
Rajasthan, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and part of Uttar Pradesh. Tissue culture raised plants of important
Agroforestry species - teak, bamboo, populus, eucalyptus, paulownia and other crops such as potato and
sugarcane have been supplied to the farmers. Field demonstrations and training on raising tissue culture
vanilla and large cardamom plants have been undertaken in Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Sikkim and West
Bengal states respectively have been successfully conducted. The efficacy of biofertilizers and biocontrol
agent/biopesticides has been demonstrated in various agro climatic zones. Packages for mass production of
biocontrol agents/biopesticides such as Trichoderma viride and T.virens, Trichogramma, NPV of Heliothis and
biofertilizers such as Rhizobium, Blue Green Algae (BGA) & Mycorrhiza have been transferred to industry.
New animal vaccines, diagnostics and embryo transfer technology have been used in the farm animals. Bovine
Rhinotracheitis (IBR) vaccine, Diagnostic test for peste des petis ruminants virus and Recombinant
protective antigen (rPA) against Anthrax have been transferred to industry.
The amount spent during last three years in different areas is given below:
(Rs. in lakhs)
1999-2000 2000-01 2001-02 Total
i) Agriculture Biotechnology 1360 1158 1428 3946
(including development of transgenics, biofertilizer, biopesticides)
ii) Plant Biotechnology/ 750 635 830 2215 Tissue Culture
iii)Animal Biotechnology 310 300 300 910 Grand Total 2420 2093 2558 7071