To discuss the issue of Bt-brinjal, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on Wednesday will meet Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, Minister of State for Science and Technology Prithviraj Chavan and Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh.

Today's meeting has been called taking into account the concerns raised by Pawar and Chavan on the moratorium of Bt-brinjal announced by the Environment minister after public consultations.

A clarification on the authority responsible for granting final clearance to genetically modified crops was asked by Pawar in a letter to Dr Singh. He said in his letter that the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee has approved the commercial cultivation of Bt-Brinjal.

Though he has said that Bt-Brinjal is safe, but Chavan has not directly opposed the moratorium saying that he was not opposed to more tests.

The commercialization of Bt Brinjal got the thumbs down by Ramesh on February 9 who imposed a moratorium on it till further study.

Karnataka joined Uttarakhand in deciding to ban Bt Brinjal without waiting for the Centre to take a call on commercialisation of the genetically modified crop.

The move to introduce Bt Brinjal has been unanimously condemned by farmers, NGO's and members of various organisations, carrying placards with slogans like "we don't need Bt Brinjal."

BT brinjal is a transgenic brinjal created by inserting a gene cry1Ac from soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis into brinjal. (With Input from Agencies)