India will have to phase out mercury within six to 10 years as the country has ratified a global treaty - Minamata Convention - which makes it mandatory for the signatories to ban the use of the deadly nerve toxin in a phased manner.
The move will protect human health and the environment from the adverse effects of mercury which is currently being used in lighting and many healthcare products including clinical thermometers, blood pressure monitors and topical antiseptic agents.
Though the Convention will ban the production, import and export of products that contain mercury by 2020, it will allow its use in certain critical areas, specifically healthcare, for the next four years.
In the meantime, the countries who signed the Convention will be encouraged to gradually reduce their use of mercury by adopting alternatives.
India ratified the global treat on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in New York on Wednesday. The Convention gives the countries another 15 years to end all mercury mining.
The treat has been named after a Japanese city - Minamata - that had witnessed one of the worst incidents of industrial poisoning by mercury in 1950s.
The move will protect human health and the environment from the adverse effects of mercury which is currently being used in lighting and many healthcare products including clinical thermometers, blood pressure monitors and topical antiseptic agents.
Though the Convention will ban the production, import and export of products that contain mercury by 2020, it will allow its use in certain critical areas, specifically healthcare, for the next four years.
In the meantime, the countries who signed the Convention will be encouraged to gradually reduce their use of mercury by adopting alternatives.
India ratified the global treat on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in New York on Wednesday. The Convention gives the countries another 15 years to end all mercury mining.
The treat has been named after a Japanese city - Minamata - that had witnessed one of the worst incidents of industrial poisoning by mercury in 1950s.
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