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The Ministry of Agriculture has proposed a complete ban on carbosulfan, a widely used carbamate insecticide, citing risks to human and animal health and to the environment.
An expert committee constituted in January 2026 submitted its report on 12 June 2026, recommending prohibition of the manufacture, import, transport, distribution, sale and use of the chemical under the Insecticides Act, 1968.
The committee classified carbosulfan as a highly hazardous insecticide that rapidly converts into carbofuran, a metabolite linked to severe cholinesterase inhibition and acute systemic toxicity.
Carbosulfan is used on paddy, cotton, sugarcane, groundnut and horticultural crops, covering an estimated 32 lakh acres in a domestic market of roughly Rs 400 crore.
The agrochemical industry has opposed the move, arguing it would raise pest-control costs for farmers.
Nerve cells signal one another by releasing the neurotransmitter acetylcholine across a synapse, and the enzyme acetylcholinesterase then breaks it down so the signal switches off. Carbamates such as carbosulfan, like organophosphates, block that enzyme. Acetylcholine accumulates, the receiving nerve or muscle is stimulated continuously, and the insect suffers uncontrolled excitation followed by paralysis and death. Because the same enzyme and the same neurotransmitter exist in mammals and birds, the mechanism is not species-specific - which is exactly why this class is dangerous to farm workers and non-target wildlife. The practical difference between the two families is that carbamate inhibition is reversible and shorter-lived, while organophosphate inhibition tends to be irreversible.
Simple Analogy: Acetylcholinesterase is the off switch on a doorbell. Block it and the bell never stops ringing - which is fatal for whatever is standing next to it, insect or otherwise.
The parent statute regulating the import, manufacture, sale, transport, distribution and use of insecticides in India; a ban on a registered molecule is issued under it.
Prescribe registration, licensing, packaging, labelling and safe-use procedures under the Act.
The statutory bodies under the Act that advise on technical matters and register insecticides; a molecule cannot be manufactured or sold in India without registration.
The international treaty under which several hazardous pesticides have been eliminated globally; India is a party, and domestic bans on such chemicals sit alongside these commitments.
Banned across India by the Supreme Court's intervention after severe health effects were documented in Kasaragod, Kerala, and later listed under the Stockholm Convention - the standard reference case for a pesticide withdrawn on health grounds.
Reviewed 66 pesticides banned elsewhere but still used in India and recommended phase-outs and further review, which set the template for the expert-committee route now used for carbosulfan.
The alternative the ban implicitly pushes towards - combining biological control, resistant varieties, crop rotation and need-based chemical use rather than routine broad-spectrum spraying.
Broad-spectrum systemic insecticides are implicated in honeybee mortality, which links pesticide regulation to crop pollination and yields.
GS Paper 3 > Environment: Pollution and Conservation; Agriculture and Science and Technology
General Awareness > Science and Environment
General Awareness > Current Events
A class of insecticides that reversibly inhibit acetylcholinesterase; carbosulfan, carbofuran and carbaryl belong to it.
A compound that is comparatively less toxic as applied but converts into a more toxic active substance after application or ingestion.
Poisoning of a predator or scavenger that eats prey which has itself consumed a toxic substance.