Dow Chemical paid bribes

February 24, 2007
Dow Paid Bribes; Indian Government Takes No Action
While farmers continue to commit suicide owing to crop failure and debts, the government refuses to take an action against Dow even while it is discovered by the US Securities and Exchange Commission that the company made improper payments to regulatory officials in India, introducing numerous pesticides that fall outside Indian regulations.
Dow Chemicals was fined with a civil penalty of $ 325,000 by the US Securities & Exchange Commission [SEC] after reports of improper payments to regulatory officials in India had emerged from the company's own accounting. The payments of upto 8.8 million Indian rupees were reported to have been made by De-Nocil, the then subsidiary of Dow Chemicals for getting various regulatory clearances for Dow's pesticides business in India during 1996 and 2001.
Some Dow pesticides registered during 1996-2001 in India (as Compiled through a search on the Dow AgroSciences India website) are listed as their brand names (chemical names):
Atracil 50% WP (Atrazine)
Saviour (Mancozeb)
Delthene (Acephate 75% SP)
Vapona (Dichlorvos 76% EC)
Goal (Oxyflourfen 23.5% EC)
Dursban 10G (Chlorpyrifos 10%G)
Bengard 50% WP (Carbendazim 50% WP)
Nurelle D 505 (Chlorpyrifos 50% EC + Cypermethrin 5% EC)
Cilcord 10% EC (Cypermethrin 10% EC)
Miraculan (Triacontanol 0.05% EC)
Cilcord 25% EC (Cypermethrin 25% EC)
Trooper 75% WP (Tricyclazole 75% WP)
Pride 20% SP (Acetamiprid 20% SP)
Clincher 10% EC (Cyhalofop butyl)
Treflan 48% EC (Trifluralin 48% EC)
Monocil 36% SL (Monocrotophos)
Success 2.5% SC (Spinosad 2.5% SC)
Magister 10% EC (Fenazaquin 10% EC)
Miticil 50% EC (Ethion 50% EC)
Tracer 45% SC (Spinosad 45% SC)
One senior official in the Central Insecticides Board of India had reportedly received around 1.6 million rupees for registering Dow's pesticides in India during the said period and while state officials had received the remaining amount for licensing related to distribution and sale of these pesticides. This is a shameful episode and reinforces the public picture with regard to pesticides regulation in the country.
Dow Chemicals is also the owner of Union Carbide Corporation, which was responsible for the Bhopal genocide and the subsequent poisoning of thousands of lives that continues to this day due to contamination from tonnes of toxic chemicals lying around in the factory premises. Dow Chemicals to this day has not come forward to accept its pending liabilities in this case even as valuable lives of Bhopalis are being lost, while thousands of others continue to suffer.
Dow Chemicals continues to sell in India some Class I pesticides like Monocrotophos while most of the developed world has banned this pesticide years ago. Their flagship product Dursban (chlorpyrifos) is banned for domestic use in the US, Dow's home country. The company has no qualms using double standards for this product between American citizens and Indians and continues to make money out of it in India.
Dow's dishonest practices have been highlighted a number of times by many activist groups in the country, notably of Bhopal disaster survivors. For instance, Dow Corning, a joint venture of Dow Chemicals, obtained regulatory approval from the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board for setting up a factory near Pune despite submitting a map of one of its factories in the USA instead of a local site map as required by Indian law.
While that is the known and well established case with Dow, this entire episode brings to the fore the serious and unacceptable shortcomings related to pesticide regulation in this country. We have been pointing out repeatedly that pesticide regulation should begin with pest management as the basic premises including safer alternatives in the hands of farmers being used in the assessment related to efficacy of a particular pesticide. However, a chemical-based risk management approach has always driven pesticide regulation, including tests related to safety and efficacy. There is no independent scrutiny of data being generated and it is the industry-generated and sponsored data that is used as the basis for decision making. The entire process is opaque and narrowly framed. Further, there is very little scope for scientific reviewing allowed.
Corrupt practices in pesticide registration have been highlighted by vigilant media several times in the past. However, no action has been taken to improve the regulatory systems. There are numerous problems pertaining to enforcement of the regulatory regime too.
For instance, Dow [ http://www.dowagro.com/india/index.htm] recommends several of its pesticides for crops and uses not recognized by the Central Insecticides Board and Registration Committee [CIBRC] as per its public database. This is a blatant violation of the Insecticides Act.
To take a few examples, the following Dow products are not recommended by the CIBRC [ http://cibrc.nic.in] for the recommendations that Dow is putting out to the farmers. Notice that a number of these pesticides were registered between 1996 and 2001, when Dow was paying bribes to government officials.

Pesticide Dow's brand name CIBRC recommendation violations
Atrazine Atracil 50% WP Not recommended for potato and bajra, though the company recommends it.
Mancozeb Saviour Not recommended by CIBRC for chilli, though the company recommends it
Dichlorvos 76% EC Vapona 76% EC CIBRC recommendation not present for soybean, sugarcane, castor, groundnut, mustard, sunflower, though company recommends it for these crops and specific pests on these crops
Oxyflourfen 23.5% EC Goal Onion, potato and tea do not figure in CIBRC's recommendations
Spinosad 45% SC Tracer 45% SC Cotton does not figure in CIBRC's recommendations though it does in the company's recommendations

In this country, each insecticide is registered for a particular crop and use in particular dosages, based on some research protocols that have been devised in the regulators' own wisdom. However, blatant violations of such registration norms and recommendations are not taken cognizance of and no liability is fixed on such violators despite repeated reports.
The entire episode of 88 lakh rupees being paid as bribes to pesticide regulators in the country is shameful and makes a mockery of the deep agrarian crisis that farmers in the country are experiencing. Such a crisis has a strong connection to the pesticides treadmill that has been thrust upon farmers in the name of scientific pest management. This treadmill has serious ecological, economic, political and health fall-outs for the farming community and the regulatory regime has always chosen to turn a blind eye to this. Compounding this is the corrupt nexus between the industry and the regulators.
This current case of Dow bribing regulators for getting pesticides into the Indian market is simply unacceptable even within the narrow official framework of risk assessment and regulation related to pesticides that your ministry adopts and calls for immediate fixing of liability for violations.
Center for Sustainable Agriculture would like to use this data to remind theJoint Parliamentary Committee on Pesticide Residues in 2003, on their observations on the non-prescribed use of chemical pesticides and wrong advice and supply of pesticides to farmers by vested interests and several serious shortcomings of pesticide registration processes in the country and the overall regulation of its production, marketing and use.
Based on this, the Center for Sustainable Agriculture would like to demand from the Agricultural Ministry the following immediately in this case:
· order Dow Chemicals to withdraw all the products permitted during 1996 and 2001 immediately from the markets all over the country since the safety and efficacy data is in serious doubt now
· initiate a full inquiry into the entire episode to get a clear picture of which officials at the Central and state governments were at the receiving end of the 'improper payments' made by the company during the period in question as well as to cover the subsequent period till date. Such an inquiry process should include responsible media and civil society members for a transparent and fair process.
· Take action against all the regulators found guilty of accepting the 'improper payments' by invoking Prevention of Corruption Act and the relevant sections of the Insecticides Act
· Initiate action against the company straightaway as it had itself confessed to the improper payments, under the Prevention of Corruption Act, through the Department of Company Affairs and under the Indian Penal Code.
· Look into other irregularities that have been pointed out in this letter related to recommendations in violation of CIBRC recommendations and fix liability for the same.

Such an inquiry be completed within the next two weeks, action taken and the report made public so that it acts as a deterrent for others.

In support of these demands, we request our readers to email Kavitha Kuruganti (kavitha.kuruganti@gmail.com), Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, 12-13-445, Street # 1, Tarnaka, Secunderabad 500 017, Phone: +91-9393001550

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Posted by collective at February 24, 2007 05:58 PM
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