The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (MoA&FW) on June 18, 2026, issued the Insecticides (Amendment) Rules, 2026, further to amend the Insecticides Rules, 1971.
The following has been amended:
• A key amendment mandates that applications for manufacturing licences and licences to sell, stock, exhibit for sale, or distribute insecticides shall be submitted online in digital mode. The fee for manufacturing licences has been prescribed at ₹2,000 per insecticide, subject to a maximum cap of ₹20,000 per application.
• The rule further replaces physical and hybrid record-keeping requirements with mandatory digital maintenance of records. Manufacturers, importers, and distributors will be required to maintain insecticide-wise digital records of sales, stock, manufacture, imports, and purchases. Monthly returns for technical-grade and formulated insecticides shall be submitted electronically to the licensing officer within 15 days of the close of each month.
• To strengthen digital compliance, receipts issued for samples collected by Insecticide Inspectors and laboratory test reports will be generated and supplied in digital form. The amendments also permit payment of prescribed fees through digital modes, facilitating electronic transactions.
• The powers and responsibilities of Insecticide Inspectors are also being modernized. Inspectors will be required to maintain digital records of inspections, sample collection, stock seizures, and enforcement actions, and upload such records within 24 hours of carrying out the inspection or action. This is intended to improve transparency, traceability, and regulatory monitoring.
• While certain statutory forms relating to sampling and seizure may continue to be issued in either physical or digital format, the rule mandates that intimations for testing or analysis of samples shall be issued digitally.
• The amendments also introduce revised formats for statutory registers and returns. New digital formats have been prescribed for sale and distribution registers, technical-grade insecticide stock registers, formulated insecticide stock registers, and monthly statements/returns. These formats require detailed reporting of batch numbers, manufacturing and expiry dates, imports, domestic purchases, production, utilization, sales, stock balances, and domestic and international transactions.
The rules shall come into force on September 20, 2026.
[Notification no. - G.S.R. 493(E)]
