After considering recommendations made by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) earlier in the year, the Central Committee for Food Standards has suggested that labelling of all GM foods in the country should be made mandatory.
The announcement follows growing awareness in India that the removal of quantitative restrictions on imports and tariffs since 2001 has led to a large influx of food and ingredients from abroad.
India is also a large importer of soybean oil and maize, two commodities that have significant GM sectors. Currently, neither imported food products nor domestically produced goods are subject to GM labelling requirements.
The ICMR study concluded that both GM and non-GM crops can get mixed; almost the entire quantity of soybean oil imported into India is crushed from GM-soybean. In addition, the report questioned the safety of the new technology.
"The use of recombinant DNA technology in the production of GM foods involves transfer of genes from different species into food producing organism," said the report. "The safety of these components of the genetic construct is not clearly known as they have the potential to induce toxicity, transfer to gut flora or produce unintended effects leading to changes that are relevant from toxicological/nutritional perspective."
Growing consumer consciousness at the grass roots level means that GM is becoming an increasingly divisive issue.
A rise in disposable income is pushing the market for processed foods, currently growing at over 12 per cent a year, and in turn propelling demand for products ranging from basic commodities to highly specific food and beverage flavours.
As a result, consumers are increasingly conscious of food issues such as GM contamination.
However, some believe that most opposition to GM crops in Asia will dissipate in the next five to seven years as the region struggles to feed its growing population. India, along with China and the Philippines, is pushing research on a number of varieties of GM rice containing the BT gene, which is resistant to the corn borer pest, the leading destroyer of corn crops in Asia.
IN any case, how any labelling law would be enforced, or what kind of declaration would be required, remains to be seen, and there is little global consensus on the matter. The US, the largest producer of GM crops including soybean and corn, has no labelling requirements while in Europe, the situation is very different.
India has been described as an economic giant, hiding in the shadow of China. The World Bank said in its 'Global Economic Prospects' report that it expects India to have grown faster than its South Asian neighbours in 2005, at 7 per cent GDP.