Nirmal K Ganguli, Director-General, Indian Council of Medical Research, and Member, Committee for the Purpose of Controlling and Supervising Experiments on Animals, fired the opening salvo at a symposium on `animals in biomedical research' at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in the Capital.

``Science should be kept out of bureaucratic control,'' declared Ganguli, comparing the committee, of which he's a member in his official capacity, with Mohammed Bin Tughlaq. The committee, incidentally, was set up in 1996 by the HD Deve Gowda government when Maneka Gandhi was just an MP.

``I don't think we have applied our minds. The government has neither the expertise nor the time to examine each research proposal,'' he said, pointing to Rule 5(a), which makes itmandatory for ``every registered establishment'' to apply for the committee's permission before ``acquiring an animal for conducting any experiment.'' Of course, he insisted he was on a day's casual leave and was not speaking in his official capacity.

``It is not enough to lay down rules; we have to provide enough money to make them work,'' Ganguli continued, saying an institution of the stature of AIIMS would require at least Rs 15-20 crore a year to keep its animal house in the best possible shape. ``Now, multiply this with the number of medical colleges and the number of biomedical institutions. Can the government even assure uninterrupted power supply for air-conditioners to work in animal houses.''

Ganguli is believed not to have been present at the committee meeting where the rules were cleared for notification in the gazette extraordinary of September 8. ``If a member did not attend the meeting, he did so of his own volition,'' countered A. P. Singh, member-secretary of the committee, who couldbarely get a couple of words in edgeways at a panel discussion where he represented Maneka Gandhi. ``We informed all members by speed post and then got in touch with them over the phone.''

Speaking to The Indian Express after the symposium, Singh made it clear that the eminent scientists who spoke had made the draft rules seem ``more obnoxious'' than what they actually were. ``The die is not castyet. These are draft rules and the idea behind notifying them is to provoke a debate,'' he said. ``Already, we have 200 representations from research institutions, individual scientists, the pharmaceutical industry, and even the FICCI Secretary-General, Amit Mitra, which is why a sub-committee has met twice this month on November 3 and 10 to study them closely.''

Singh added that the sub-committee, in fact, was in agreement ``on all the points'' raised by the eminent scientists, who included the likes of A. S. Paintal, V Ramalingaswami and BK Anand. ``Almost every line of the draft rules is being changed,'' hesaid. ``Yet, the intention of the government is being construed as being mala fide.''

The member-secretary's assurance, though, did not wash well with senior scientists like Sandip Basu, Director, National Institute of Immunology (NII). ``We made these suggestions in April, but all of them were thrown out,'' he said.

Basu was particularly concerned about the centralisation of the clearance process, which, he feared, would only lead to the replication of the work already being done by animal care and use committees at institutions like NII, and make scientists more vulnerable than ever to bureaucratic whims.

``If these rules are implemented, things will fall apart,'' he insisted, pointing particularly to the provision forbidding the free exchange of laboratory animals. As his colleague, Satyajit Rath emphasised: ``We need a large number of custom-bred mice, especially mice with genes knocked out, to understand how the immune system works. A very large number of these mice are produced overseas. Now, ifpermissions don't come through in real time, how can you expect our experiments to be viable?''

Ganguli, however, had the last word. ``Our laboratory animals are treated better than humans,'' he said. ``Go to any jhuggi cluster and you'll know the difference. Yet, the government is only creating chaos and confusion that will lead to anarchy, compel our scientists to leave the country.