Online system for product certificates not working well: Pesticide industry

India’s pesticides and plant protection industry, worth about Rs 40,000 crore, says registration certificates for products are delayed because two state-run portals for the work aren’t functioning well.

The portals were launched in April 2022 and aim to provide a transparent system with no physical touchpoints for the applicants and ensure convenience to the users, through an online system including e-payments and uploading of documents, online accreditation, and renewal of treatment agencies or facilities and downloading of certificates.

Industry players, however, alleged that the portals-- computerized registration of pesticides (CROP) and plant quarantine information systems (PQIS) are not functioning smoothly and have delayed registration certificates needed for different products for export and domestic use.

Unless resolved quickly, senior officials from the industry fear that it might lead to no new plant protection chemicals being available to farmers in this kharif season.

Industry players said this could have consequences on the final yields due to rising incidents of newer kinds of pest attacks on crops in the last few years such as cotton. The plant protection industry recently approached the government and also submitted a memorandum.

“We are fully aware about the transformation and transit of web portals, however, the delay in issuance of Certificate of Registration is affecting the kharif input supply badly.  We have requested the Department for immediate intervention on the issue. We also had several discussions with the authorities and are expecting the issues to be resolved soon,” Kalyan Goswami, Director General of Agro-chem Federation of India (ACFI), a pesticide policy platform, told 'Business Standard'.