Chhattisgarh Jaiv Suraksha Manch

Chhattisgarh has again been attacked by a multinational company. You
must be remembering two years back Syngenta an Swiss MNC tried to
snatch the germplasm of twenty thousand rice varieties of
Chhattisgarh. These were the varieties collected by Dr.R H Richharia
during his work at MP Rice Research Institute. Those varieties are
kept with Indira Gandhi Agriculture University, Raipur. Luckily the
information leaked out before finalization of the deal. The people of
Chhattisgarh resisted strongly against the back door entry of the MNC
and expressed their mandate in favor of community rights on all the
bio-resources and related knowledge of the Chhattisgarh . The
university and state government should have taken lesson, but it is
evident that neither of them took the feelings of People of
Chhattisgarh seriously.

This time germplasm of 18 local varieties of Jatropha have been
stolen. These varieties are considered to have high oil content and
disease and drought resistance qualities. High quality Pendra variety
has also been stolen. (Many variants of Jatropha are wildly found in
some forests of Chhattisgarh. The variety found in Pendra area of
Chhattisgarh is considered to be of high quality.) A multinational
company known as D-one has received the germplasm and said to have
cultivated it in a form house near Raipur taken on lease by the MNC.

One interesting thing is that in both the cases of bio-piracy (The
syngenta and the D-One) the medium for the robbery has been IGKVV.
The IGKVV has failed to protect the bio-resources of Chhattisgarh to
which it is presumed to be custodian.

According to news paper report (Dainik Bhaskar, 17th Jan.06) the
university had appointed an investigation team to find out the
details of the case. The team led by Dr.ARRS Shastri found Dr. Sunil
Puri of IGKVV guilty and the university charge sheeted Dr.Puri for
the same. Meanwhile Dr.Puri has joined the same MNC establishment in
Coimbatore. Surprisingly the university administration tried its best
to hide the issue from the eyes of the public. The university's
attitude was of a criminal negligence. Such negligence to the public
property by a public sector institution is very serious.

The issue has again opened the issue of concern of the people of
Chhattigarh about the security of their bio-resources kept in the
custody of the IGKVV and other centralized structures. The university
has been hiding the information on seeds of Chhattisgarh from public
in the name of official secrecy but it is leaking the information and
the germplasm to MNCs time and again. Apart from breach of trust to
the nation this is also violation of the rights of the people of
Chhattisgarh. We fear that the greatest threat to the bio-resources
of Chhattisgarh is from the IGKVV and such other structures which
have centralized control on the bio-resources. We would like to
remind the concept of decentralized research, extension and germplasm
accessions given by Dr.RH Richharia to tackle such act of both theft
and subsequent negligence. The role of the university in stopping the
information about the farmer's seed to come in public domain has
always been under suspicion and can be easily related to such acts of
bio-piracy. The university has kept Dr.Richharia's work "Encyclopedia
of Rice" unpublished. The university is yet to answer these questions
to the public.

The negligence of the serious issues at university and State
government level can also be viewed in the matter that the report of
the Bagai Committee commissioned to investigate the Syngenta deal,
has yet not been made public after almost three years of the
incidence.

We appeal all friends to protest against such criminal act and demand
for an enquiry and action against the guilty persons and the MNCs.

We demand

·Criminal case be filed against the MNC and the scientist involved.

·The Bagai committee report on Syngenta issue investigation be made
public.

·Dr. Richharia's work "Encyclopedia of Rice" be published and bring
the information on bio-resources under control of the university in
public domain.

Suresh Sahu

Rupantar, Raipur
Ph. 0771 2263683,2424669
sahusureshk@...
sahusureshk@...