The stock of Monsanto India fell 2.57 per cent to Rs 2374.05 on the BSE. The company’s response to the request was a letter, dated July 5, sent by Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Co Ltd, (MAHYCO) Monsanto’s technical partner in India, to New Delhi, singling out the request for proprietary technology. But even so, 41 million packets of seeds were sold in India past year, earning Monsanto 6.5 billion Indian rupees ($97 million) in royalties. The new seed, Bollgard II Roundup Ready Flex was supposed to be a technological breakthrough for Monsanto, pushing the yield to even greater heights, while addressing the complaints about the bollworm.
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Indian workers unload cotton from a truck at a cotton processing and packaging industry in Kadi, some 50 kms from Ahmedabad on December 3, 2014.
It will also ratchet up pressure on the Indian government, as it undermines Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts to make the country look more attractive to foreign investors.
Monsanto has axed plans to launch its next generation of genetically modified cotton seeds in India, over a dispute with the Indian government about sharing the seeds’ technology and royalties. The government is now evaluating the feedback.
But the government went ahead and capped royalty for the new GM traits at 10 per cent of the maximum sale price of BT cotton seeds for the first five years (See: India further tightens norms for Bt cotton seed pricing). The Indian seed company told Reuters the proposal “alarmed us and raised serious concerns about the protection of intellectual property rights”.
The regulatory agency Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) was also asked by Mahyco to return the material submitted by the company as a part of the application, which, Reuters reported, a government official said had been done.
The regulator has done that, a government official said.
Reuters reported however that Monsanto sold more than 41 million GM cotton seed packets were sold past year, earning royalties of 6.5 billion Indian rupees ($97 million) for the company.
Monsanto claimed that its Bollgard cotton technologies have transformed India from a net importer in 2002 to becoming the second largest producer of cotton globally.
Mahyco applied to the GEAC for approval of the new GM seed some time in 2007.
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