New Delhi, April 24 -- In a major move to curb fake and spurious pesticides, the government has cancelled the registrations of over 7,000 pesticide firms with the Central Insecticides Board (CIB) after enforcing Know Your Customer (KYC) norms.

Only 2,584 companies were found to be KYC compliant.

States have been advised to note that products from the non-compliant firms should not be marketed since their registrations are automatically cancelled, according to sources.

"Pesticides management is a focus area for the government due to rampant misuse of these chemicals. As a first step, we checked registrations against minimum KYC norms to identify genuine manufacturers. The number of KYC-compliant firms is now less than 2,600 out of nearl...