Hyderabad: The government of India brought in a new legislation on Thursday which will rein in the prices of Genetically Modified seeds, the ‘Licensing and Formats for GM Technology Agreement Guidelines, 2016.’ As per these guidelines, the maximum trait value of any new GM trait developed after the passing of this legislation may be only up to 10% of Maximum Sale Price (MSP) of GM cotton seeds as fixed by the central government every year.
This will be only for the initial period of five years from commercialisation of the GM trait and from sixth year onward, it will be decreased every year at the rate of 10% of initial trait value.
The legislation also states that any GM trait which loses its efficacy as reported by the states shall not be eligible for any trait value and that the mere presence of a trait in the seed after loss of efficacy will not be a reason for claiming any trait value. The Bill prescribes a new format for bilateral agreements between companies on GM seeds. It said the existing pacts between technology providers and seed firms would become invalid and that they should forge agreement in the new format.
