India’s Policy Shift Toward Genome-Edited Crops

India’s Policy Shift Toward Genome-Edited Crops:

India’s progress in genetically modified (GM) crops has stalled since 2006, with no new commercial approvals beyond Bt cotton. However, genome-edited (GE) crops are witnessing accelerated development and regulatory support. Recently, two GE rice (Samba Mahsuri and MTU-1010) were cleared for release, and a GE mustard is under advanced trials, signalling a major policy shift in India’s agricultural biotechnology landscape. GE plants are exempt from the Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change’s (MoEFCC) strict biosafety rules because they contain no foreign (exogenous) DNA, unlike GM crops, which require approval from the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee for field trials, seed production, or commercial release.
GE crops need clearance only from an Institutional Biosafety Committee, which must simply confirm that the edited plant has no foreign DNA.