Massive funds that could have been collected from the industry and channelised for conservation of biodiversity in India could not be collected due to lack of proper implementation of the Biological Diversity Act 2002, which has been enacted to ensure conservation of biodiversity, sustainable use of its components and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of the utilisation of bio-resources.
The National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) is supposed to give permission and regulate foreign companies utilising bio-resources for commercial purpose under Section 3 of the BDA.
Under Section 2(G) of the same Act, the NBA is also supposed to issue guidelines to the State Biodivesity Boards to determine access benefit sharing.
The State Biodiversity Boards have powers to regulate and advise the utilisation of bio-resources by Indian companies under Section 7 of the BDA and under Section 23 of the same act, they are supposed to advise the state governments “subject to guidelines issued by Central government” on matters relating to conservation of biodiversity and its sustainable use as well as equitable sharing of benefits arising out of the utilisation of bio-resources.
Inquiries have revealed that the NBA has not regulated a single “foreign” company operating in India. Consequently companies in the food processing, dairy and agro sectors as well as leading manufacturers of enzyme-based dietary supplements, especially research driven enzyme manufacturing firms have not subjected themselves to the “access benefit sharing” regime.
In the process millions of rupees that should have been collected under specific provisions of BDA from these companies could not been channelised for biodiversity conservation. What is also a matter of concern is that NBA has failed to issue guidelines and even the government of India has not issued the gazette notification with regard to access benefit sharing right since BDA became the law of the land in 2004, when UPA-I came to power.