Jammu, Dec 23 :
Welcoming a number of people friendly initiatives taken by Satyapal Malik, the Governor of J&K, “We The Human” – Forum For Nature and Mankind, a registered charitable trust working for conservation of environment, in a press conference organized at press club Jammu, made an appeal to the Governor to ban sale of toxic pesticides, insecticides of Class I category in the state. Retired Principal District & Session Judge K Y S Manhas, Capt. Lalit Sharma IFS, S. Prem Singh, M. Sadiq Nargal Food Technologist, CSIR-IIM Consultant K K Sharma, Advocate Sahib Aggarwal, Mushtaq Ahmed Shah, S K Arora, Farmers’ leader Ashwani Sharma, Mohinder Kumar, Anil Bhat, Inder Parihar, B D Chowdhary, Naresh Verma, Seema Parihar, Narender Jasrotia were among other members of the trust present on the occasion. Addressing the journalists, K Y S Manhas Vice Chairman of Executive Body of the trust said that recently, Punjab Government banned sale of 20 pesticides/insecticides viz. Phosphamidion, Mathomyl, Phorate, Triazophos, Monocrotophos along with several other class I pesticides. These toxic class I pesticides are categorized into extremely hazardous (class IA) and highly hazardous (Class IB) to human health by the World Health Organization and are banned in many countries. Phosphamidion is banned in 49 countries, Phorate in 37 countries, Trizophos in 40 countries and Monocrotophos in 60 countries as per report published by CSE (Centre for Science & Environment) a nonprofit public interest research and advocacy organization based in New Delhi, India. In Jammu and Kashmir the use of toxic chemical pesticides is very high: even higher than its usage in Punjab & Haryana. Punjab and Haryana, taking lessons from past catastrophe caused due to excessive use of toxic chemical pesticides consumption, have taken number of strict measures resulting in a declining trend in pesticides consumption. M. Sadiq Nargal Food Technologist said that very few among us may be ignorant about daily Abhor-Jodhpur passenger train which is named by locals as ‘Cancer Train’, running between Bathinda & Bikaner; The poor patients mostly the farmers and their family members suffering from Cancer disease as a result of the adverse impact of ‘Green Revolution’ on public health in Punjab, especially in Punjab’s Malwa region (the cotton belt) travel to Acharya Tulsi Regional Cancer Treatment and Research Center Bikaner for undergoing free of cost treatment for Cancer.
