Envu India: Why Professional Pest Management Must Go Beyond Spraying - M. Arun Kumar

As urbanisation, changing weather patterns and growing concerns around health, safety and environmental responsibility reshape pest-management needs in India, the industry is increasingly moving beyond conventional spraying and fumigation. M. Arun Kumar, Managing Director, Envu India, discusses the changing landscape, the role of integrated pest management and technology, and why greater focus on professional skills and standards is needed.

1. When people hear 'pest control', they often think of spraying or fumigation. What do you think the industry is still misunderstood about in India?

Spraying is the part a customer can see, but professional pest management begins with diagnosis. Before anything is applied, the technician should know what the pest is, where it comes from, and what is allowing it to survive. The lasting answer may involve sealing an entry point, removing a food or water source, changing a cleaning practice, or improving monitoring. Treatment is one part of the programme.

The bigger misunderstanding is a commercial one. In India, pest management is still bought largely on price, and a signed contract is often treated as proof that the problem is handled. A contract shows that a service has been purchased; it does not show that the risk is under control. In a hospital, restaurant, food factory or home, credibility comes from the technician's competence, the reasoning behind the treatment and the record left behind. When buyers compare those elements alongside price, pest management is recognised for what it is: a health, safety and asset-protection function.

2. How are urbanisation, changing weather patterns and the way Indian cities are being built changing the pest and vector challenges we face?

Urban growth brings more people, food, waste, water and construction activity into the same space. This gives pests more places to harbour and more routes to move. Construction can disturb rodents or termites already present. Service shafts, basement drains and water tanks can connect areas that appear separate, and in a dense neighbourhood, a problem in one property can quickly affect another. Termite risk is a good example: pre-construction protection belongs in the building plan, while an occupied building requires a different remedial approach.

Weather is also making timing less predictable. Heavy rainfall can create mosquito breeding sites within days, while longer warm periods can extend pest activity beyond the expected season. Fixed annual schedules give way to regular inspection, faster reporting and surveillance-led decisions. Cities will need closer coordination across drainage, waste management, building maintenance, municipal health teams and professional pest managers.

3. There is often a tension between efficacy, safety and environmental responsibility. How do you think the industry should navigate that balance?

Efficacy, safety and environmental responsibility should be treated as a single operating standard. An ineffective treatment may need to be repeated. An approved product can also create unnecessary exposure or environmental impact when the dose, equipment or application method is wrong. Product selection and application quality must be considered together.

The starting point is integrated pest management: identify the pest, remove the conditions supporting it, monitor activity and use an approved treatment only where it is needed. Product design can help. Aqua K-Othrine is a water-based mosquito space spray approved by CIB&RC in India and WHO-prequalified for indoor and outdoor space-spray use. It enables water, rather than diesel, to be used as the carrier. Baraki, a pyriproxyfen larvicide, acts at breeding sites by interrupting mosquito development before adults emerge. In both cases, the result still depends on correct dilution, working equipment and trained operators.

Customers should feel comfortable asking why a treatment has been chosen, what preventive steps are being taken, what precautions are required and how success will be measured. Suppliers should welcome the same scrutiny. The principle also applies to Envu as a company. EcoVadis independently assesses our sustainability performance. Our Gold rating places us among the top five per cent of more than 70,000 companies assessed globally.

4. What role do you see technology and data playing in the future of pest and vector management in India?

Data is most valuable before an infestation becomes obvious. Digital service histories, mapped sightings, connected traps and simple dashboards can reveal recurring hotspots or unusual activity earlier than an occasional inspection.

In a hotel, hospital, food facility or housing complex, these insights allow the technician to focus on areas showing activity and tailor the response. Municipal teams can combine field observations with weather and disease-surveillance information to decide where to inspect or intervene first. Serialisation and on-pack authentication can also help technicians and customers verify that a product is genuine, correctly labelled and traceable.

Experienced technicians remain essential. Data can point to a problem, but the technician still has to interpret the building conditions, human behaviour and pest biology behind it. Technology should strengthen that judgement and improve documentation, not replace the technician.

5. India's pest-management market includes players of very different sizes and capabilities. What should a customer actually look for when deciding whether a service provider is credible?

A company's size tells you very little about its service quality. I would begin with the inspection. The technician should be able to explain which pest is present, where the activity is coming from, and why the proposed treatment suits that situation. An immediate jump to a product or package, without that diagnosis, is a warning sign.

Then ask about the person, the process and the evidence. Who will come to the site? What training do they hold? Will the provider use products approved for that setting? There should be a clear preparation and follow-up plan, a written service record and a named person accountable if the problem continues. Independent certification can be useful, but its scope matters. Selected Envu products carry HACCP International certification for specified zones in food-handling premises. That is evidence against a defined standard, not a blanket endorsement of the entire service.

Price matters, but it should be weighed alongside training, supervision and follow-up. At Envu, our field and technical-services teams support operators when a site is difficult, and we work with food-safety specialists such as Dr V. Pasupathy of Parikshan FSS. A credible provider knows when to seek that support rather than guess.

6. What needs to change for pest-control technicians to be seen as skilled professionals rather than simply service workers?

Recognition begins with the work itself. A technician needs knowledge of pest biology, buildings, application equipment, safety and customer communication, and often makes judgement calls in homes, hospitals, hotels and food facilities. That is skilled technical work, even when the knowledge has been learned informally on the job.

India already has a foundation. Pest-management roles appear on the National Qualification Register, and IPCA and NIRDPR have worked on standardising curricula. The gap is adoption: qualifications remain voluntary for most technicians, and customers rarely ask for them. In October 2025, Envu and NIRDPR signed an MoU to expand industry-oriented skill training. The first programme was held in Delhi. Envu subsidises about half the cost per technician so that smaller operators can participate. We also work with PestPro Learning Hub to make the learning available beyond one company. The programme is designed for people already working in the field and combines re-skilling, assessment and certification against recognised occupational standards.

Certification must lead to a visible career path. Technicians need opportunities to move into supervision, training, auditing or technical support, with greater responsibility and better earnings. Customers can accelerate that change simply by asking to see credentials before work begins. This is as much about safety and dignity as it is about service quality.

7. Envu manufactures locally in India. Beyond supply availability, how does being closer to the market influence the way you respond to Indian conditions and customer needs?

For Envu, local manufacturing shortens the feedback loop between the field and the decisions we make. The monsoon does not arrive in the same way everywhere, and demand can change quickly by region and season. Local production helps us plan supply and pack formats around how products are actually used in India. It also helps us understand which formulation characteristics matter most under local conditions. Any resulting product change must still follow the required regulatory process.

Being close to the market also strengthens technical support and local evidence generation. Feedback from pest-management professionals, developers, hotels, food businesses and municipal teams moves more quickly into our training, application guidance and customer support. We also generate data under Indian conditions. This includes indoor residual-spray trials with ICMR's National Institute of Malaria Research; stored-grain work with the Food Corporation of India and the Indian Grain Storage Management and Research Institute under applicable CIB&RC approvals; and a poultry collaboration with ICAR's Central Avian Research Institute.

For me, the most important benefit is accountability. The local team that hears the field issue remains involved after the product has been supplied and is responsible for helping the customer reach the right outcome. This gives customers sustained local support beyond a global specification sheet.

8. India is a complex market in terms of climate, density and disease burden. Are there learnings from India that can influence how environmental science solutions are developed globally?

India is a demanding place in which to test a solution. Heat, humidity, dust, heavy rainfall, dense construction and very different levels of infrastructure can all exist within the same market. When a product, formulation, application method or service model works consistently across those conditions, the learning is useful well beyond India.

India also teaches us about scale. A solution may be scientifically strong, but it must also be teachable across a workforce with varied educational backgrounds and experience levels, applied consistently and documented across thousands of sites or a large public-health programme. India makes the practical side of innovation impossible to ignore, and the skilling model we are building here can be as transferable as the science itself. The exchange works both ways: K-Othrine PolyZone has performed well in Malaysia, and we are working towards introducing it in India, subject to registration and regulatory approval.

At Envu, we judge innovation by the problem it solves in the field. That can mean a new product, an improved formulation, a clearer protocol, better training, a more reliable delivery system or a digital tool that helps people act earlier. Our focus on environmental science allows lessons from India to shape choices in other markets.

9. What is one issue in pest or environmental health management that you believe India is not talking about enough today?

The issue is fragmented adoption of professional standards. India already has occupational benchmarks and association-led curriculum work, but customers do not yet see one widely adopted expectation connecting technician competence, safe application, documentation and accountability. That makes providers difficult to compare and leaves good operators competing mainly on price.

The food sector shows why these matters. In July 2026, Maharashtra FDA suspended the FSSAI licences of five Mumbai clubs after inspections identified several hygiene failures, including poor pest-control measures. Schedule 4 already requires pest infestations to be dealt with immediately and records of pesticide use to be maintained. Pest management is part of a food business's licence to operate, not simply an audit file.

The next step is wider adoption of the foundations that already exist. Associations, skilling bodies, operators, suppliers and customers need to converge on a shared expectation of competent service. When customers can compare providers on training, application quality and evidence of results, standards will rise faster than they will through another argument about price.

10. If you look five years ahead, what would tell you that India's pest-management industry has genuinely matured?

For me, maturity will be visible when competence is easy to recognise across the market. Customers will understand pest management as diagnosis, prevention, treatment and follow-up, with spraying recognised as one step within that programme.

Recognised technician qualifications will become the norm. Service reports will be digital. Developers will include termite-protection records in handovers. Hotels and food businesses will review pest trends, while municipalities use early surveillance. Industry associations will present a clear technical position to government. Procurement will weigh competence and results alongside price, and technicians will be paid accordingly. That is how we advance healthy environments for everyone, everywhere.