Industry leaders are calling for the fast-track clearance of biotech crops currently stuck in regulatory limbo. An industry coalition on February 27 issued the 'Bangalore Declaration', urging the Indian government to lift the two-year moratorium on Bacillus thuringiensis (BT) brinjal or eggplant (Nat. Biotechnol. 28, 296, 2010) and establish the Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) as a single, national regulatory point for approving genetically modified (GM) crops. The industry is also campaigning for the abolition of a rule requiring GM crops to gain local government permission for field tests, which they say hinders R&D. “We have a Bt rice and a Bt cotton, but I am unable to test them because of this rule,” says Kottaram K. Narayanan, managing director of Metahelix Life Sciences in Bangalore. According to the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) more than 50 GM crops—70% from the public sector—are at various stages of regulatory processing, but Raghavendra Rao, senior official of DBT, says, “all these crops in the pipeline are just standing at the gate of the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC)” that is currently far from active. BRAI is expected to replace GEAC by 2013, but the legislation for establishing it has faced activists' opposition since 2010. The Coalition for a GM-Free India says it will never “open the doors for this unsafe technology.” “I am frustrated with the way things are, but remain optimistic because our farmers desperately need GM crops,” Narayanan said.