The Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, MoA&FW, Government of India has prepared a fresh draft Pesticides Management Bill, 2025 in alignment with current requirements. It is intended to replace the present Insecticides Act, 1968 and the Insecticides Rules, 1971 made thereunder.

The Draft Pesticides Management Bill, 2025 is a farmer-centric legislation with several salient features. The revised Bill incorporates provisions such as transparency and traceability to ensure better services to farmers, thereby promoting ease of living.

It includes reform-oriented measures, including the use of technology and digital methods for streamlining processes, along with stricter control over spurious pesticides through higher penalties. Provisions have also been made for compounding of offences, with enhanced penalties to act as a deterrent, to be defined by state-level authorities.

Further, amendments have been introduced to strengthen administrative control and management of pesticides, striking a balance between ease of life and ease of doing business. This bill also provides for mandatory accreditation of testing laboratories, ensuring that only quality pesticides is available to farmers.

As part of the pre-legislative consultation process, the draft Pesticides Management Bill, 2025 and the prescribed format are available on the Ministry's website: https://agriwelfare.gov.in.

Stakeholders and members of the public can submit comments and suggestions in MS Word or PDF format through e-mails to pp1.pesticides@gov.in, rajbir.yadava@gov.in, or jyoti.uttam@gov.in.

Ankur Aggarwal, Chairman, CropLife India, said, "We are currently in the process of examining the draft Pesticides Management Bill 2025 (revised 2020 bill). We shall arrive at a consolidated view of the industry and share a detailed response in due course."