Centre's new insecticides rules could weaken regulatory oversight: Expert

According to the experts, the draft notification “exceeds” the delegated rule-making powers under Section 36 of the Insecticides Act, 1968, and therefore, requires a Parliamentary amendment to the parent Act.

Bengaluru: The Union government’s draft notification, Insecticides (Amendment) Rules, 2026, raises serious constitutional concerns regarding both the procedure adopted for introducing major changes and the substance of the proposed amendments, which could curtail state powers and weaken regulatory oversight, public policy expert Donthi Narasimha Reddy has said.

In his written objection to the draft, notified on March 18, Reddy questioned whether amendments of such magnitude, including the proposal for a single licence per insecticide and multi-location licensing, could be implemented through subordinate legislation via a gazette notification.

He argued that these changes would dismantle the federal structure of pesticide regulation by eliminating the product-specific and location-specific licensing regime under which states exercised their own regulatory authority.

According to him, the draft notification “exceeds” the delegated rule-making powers under Section 36 of the Insecticides Act, 1968, and therefore, requires a Parliamentary amendment to the parent Act.

Reddy also expressed concern that the amendments would curtail the powers of states, some of which have used existing provisions to ban toxic insecticides.

He further noted that the proposal to replace individual dealer licensing with a corporate, multi-location single licence would remove a key enforcement mechanism available to district agricultural officers for monitoring product quality and legality at the point of sale. This, he warned, could facilitate the proliferation of spurious insecticides.

Yavatmal deaths

“Farming communities in Vidarbha, already scarred by the 2017 Yavatmal pesticide poisoning deaths, stand to be among the most severely affected,” he added.

Additionally, Reddy criticised the proposal to cap the licensing fee at Rs 7,500, irrespective of the toxicity of products or the number of locations, calling it grossly disproportionate to the potential public health and environmental risks associated with insecticide use.

Endosulfan tragedy

He pointed out that the endosulfan tragedy in Kerala alone led to rehabilitation expenditures exceeding Rs 500 crore.

Finally, he cautioned that the amendments would erode the integrity of the registration–licensing framework.

While registration serves as the scientific gatekeeping mechanism, licensing functions as the market-level control. The proposed single-licence system, he argued, would completely sever this critical link.