The New Indian Expresss / 7th June, 2000
Bangalore, June 6: In yet another secret operation, the US based multinational seed company, Monsanto, has shut down its R&D unit in Bioinformatics at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc).
Close on the heels of the unit's closure on June 2, Monsanto is also said to have sacked a substantial number of people at its other unit-IT Programming. While the IISc unit's closure has left 10 scientists jobless, the sack-operation is said to have sparked off a chain reaction.
The Monsanto R&D Centre with 70 scientists came up at the IISc in 1998 following a tieup amidst much controversy. While the centre's IT Programming unit functions at Malleswaram, the other three units-Crop Protection, Rice Transformation and Gekep (Genome Knowledge Enhancement Programme)-are located at the IISc campus.
The Bioinformatics group was involved in research in the area of application of information technology in genomics and gene sequencing.
If scientists are to be believed, the company's action last week has already met with sharp reaction from its workforce. A sizeable number of engineers at its IT programming unit have resigned and this includes the group's Operations Head.
"The company is desperately looking for IT professionals to work in its programming unit," a scientist said.
Monsanto has been in the Indian market with brand names like Round Up, Machetty, Leader etc., for its herbicides, and with genetically modified seeds of cotton, wheat, corn and paddy.
The company, however, made futile bids to introduce the terminator gene technology in India, but gave up the idea following stiff opposition from the farm community and the Indian Government.
It was in the thick of a storm ever since it acquired the US-based Delta Paine that had developed the terminator gene technology in the late '90s. The technology when used in crop production, will render the second generation seed sterile. This will invariably lead to a farmer's dependence on the company for seeds, and the company's consequent monopoly in seed market.
Scientists at the IISc claim, Monsanto, which has been making huge profits, is in the process of pulling out all its research activities from India. Its R&D headquarters at St Louis,USA will now be enough to take care of the Indian market.
"Alternatively, Monsanto might prefer to keep its research unit at the IISc with a deflated strength just to earn goodwill. We left our jobs abroad when Monsanto offered us opportunities to do research in Bangalore.
So did a number of scientists working in the areas of life sciences from different departments of the IISc.In just two years, we have been thrown out," a section of researchers told this paper.
Monsanto, however, has justified the closure of Bioinformatics unit on the grounds that it had lost its relevance." Our R&D headquarters at St.Louis having a re-look on the core areas of research.
According to our latest plans, we are consolidating our activities on just four areas: crop protection, crop transformation, annotation and programming.
Bioinformatics has been dropped," a Delhi-based Monsanto spokesperson told this paper over phone.
About the scientists rendered jobless, she said, "They have been with us for only two years, and therfore, thier relocation is is not a problem. Our Human Resources Department has, in fact, gone out of the way in giving them a generous package, nd is even helping them out infinding placements".
While the people thrown out insisted that the package they got was not at all generous, the scenario at the centre was amicable.
According to her, the company is restructuring its operations in India after its global merger with Pharmacia and upjohn.
The closure too is just a part of that restructing operation.
(posted without permission)
