New Delhi, May 2: A brand of US-made corn chips containing genetically modified (GM) ingredients is being sold in the Indian market without mandatory approvals by government agencies, an environment group claimed today.

Greenpeace officials in India said tests on samples of Doritos corn chips, a brand owned by PepsiCo, picked up in a Delhi supermarket, have shown the presence of GM herbicide-tolerant maize that had been embroiled in a safety controversy in Europe.

Under rules governing GM products, food with GM material can be sold in India with permission from the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) of the ministry of environment and forests.

Greenpeace has released documents obtained through the Right to Information Act that suggest the committee had not cleared the sale of the corn chips. In response to a query about the import of GM products between 2005 and 2008, the environment ministry had said the GEAC had approved refined vegetable soybean oil. It did not mention corn chips.

“The government appears clueless about what’s sold in India,” said Rajesh Krishnan, a Greenpeace campaigner.

PepsiCo said the company did not import this product into India. “While Doritos is a PepsiCo brand, the product is not manufactured in India, we do not import it to India and we do not authorise others to import it to India,” a spokesperson said.

Greenpeace officials said the product could have been imported by any private trader.