Critically analyse the split of pesticide regulation between the Insecticides Act, 1968 and the FSS Act, 2006. How far would the Pesticide Management Bill, 2020 address the gaps?

India regulates pesticides under two parallel laws. The Insecticides Act, 1968 covers registration, manufacture and sale through the Central Insecticides Board and Registration Committee (CIB&RC) on the agriculture side [2]. Section 21 of the FSS Act, 2006 lets FSSAI (Health Ministry) fix residue tolerances in food [3]. The split has a logic, but the two laws do not connect well.

Merits of the split

• Specialisation: agriculture experts judge whether a pesticide works on the crop, and a food regulator judges the risk from eating its residues.
• Independent check: FSSAI's draft tea MRLs for Acetamiprid (20 mg/kg) and Imidacloprid (50 mg/kg) are open for stakeholder comment, separately from the body that approves the chemicals [5].

Gaps and weaknesses

• Sequencing gap: the 1968 Act allows registration without an MRL under the FSS Act [1]. Limits lag behind field use; the tea MRLs are still only a draft [5].
• Conflict of interest: the Agriculture Ministry's job of raising productivity may clash with protecting health and the environment [1].
• Enforcement deficit: a 2017 CAG audit found some state food labs could not test for pesticide contamination [4].
• Environmental blind spot: an MRL protects only the consumer. Harm to pollinators, soil and water is weighed only at registration, and no law requires the two decisions to be read together.

How far the 2020 Bill helps

Addresses:

• No registration unless an MRL is specified under the FSS Act, which closes the sequencing gap [1].
• A Central Pesticides Board to monitor residues in food and advise on lab standards [1].
• An ex gratia fund for poisoning victims, plus consumer remedies [1].

Leaves open:

• The regulator stays within the Agriculture Ministry [1].
• No time limit for registration, no fixed validity period and no set frequency for reviews [1].
• Thin capacity: about 10,946 inspectors and testing for 80,000 samples, against 2.4 lakh dealers (2019) [1].

The Bill would make registration wait for a food-safety limit, but it does not settle who should regulate or how well limits are enforced. Passing it with time-bound reviews, joint health-environment oversight and funded residue labs in every state would give effect to Article 47's public-health duty and SDG target 12.4 on sound chemicals management.