"The on-going experiments on transgenic plants being carried out by government research institutions and private sector are expected to reach commercial use within a couple of years," Ghosh, also a member of the DBT's expert committee on patents, said. Ghosh, who was here to participate in an international conference on `Biotechnology For Sustained Agriculture Production', said the bio-safety concerns over genetically engineered plants pertaining to toxicity, allegenicity and anti-nutritional properties have not yet manifested in any form.

"The positive impact of transgenics have far exceeded the apprehensive negative impacts. However, we are adopting a case-by-case approach to eliminate any possible risk to natural environment and human health," he said.

The increased crop yield and reduction in consumption of pesticides were the main agronomical advantages of genetically modified plants, Ghosh, who leads a national programme on industrial biotechnology and bio-safety regulatory policies, said. The focus of the country's genetic engineering research should be on main crops like rice, wheat, sugarcane, corn and pulses as the livelihood of millions of farmers is dependent on them, Ghosh said.

Earlier, making a presentation at the conference, which concluded on Tuesday, he said all the transgenic plants used in commercial agriculture such as BT gene incorporated cotton, corn, potato, herbicide resistant corn and altered oil composition crops like rapeseed had shown several agronomical advantages.

In India, the first transgenic plant experiments started in 1995 and several government and private research institutes had since developed transgenic plants that are ready for field evaluation, the scientist said.

The ministry of Science and Technology and DBT had initiated field experiments under contained conditions in accordance with the recommendations of the Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation (RCGM), he said.

The bio-safety data required to be generated includes the rationale for development of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOS), details of their molecular biology, comparisons of germination rates, susceptibility to diseases and pests and food safety evaluation, Ghosh said.

If GMO technology was not properly assessed before allowing their commercial use, there could be unintended hazards with bearing on natural environment and human health.

The two-day conference was jointly organised by DBT, International Life Sciences Institute-India (ILSI) and the Union Ministry of Agriculture.