What happened: NBA disbursed ₹2.82 crore under ABS
The National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) disbursed ₹2.82 crore under the Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) mechanism. NBA reported a recipient split between 27 State Biodiversity Boards (SBBs) and 3 Union Territory Biodiversity Councils (UTBCs), and ICAR-Indian Institute of Horticultural Research (ICAR-IIHR), Karnataka.
NBA disbursed ₹2.80 crore to 27 SBBs and 3 UTBCs. NBA disbursed ₹2.01 lakh to ICAR-IIHR, Karnataka for ABS related to two microbial strains used for research and commercial utilisation.
Background: two ABS inflow cases led to this disbursal cycle
NBA reported receiving ₹2.94 crore from M/s Advanta Enterprises Ltd. (formerly M/s UPL Limited) for genetic resources linked to horticultural hybrids, and reported receiving ₹7.15 lakh from M/s Sumitomo Chemical India Ltd., Mumbai (formerly M/s Excel Crop Care) for microbial strains sourced from ICAR-IIHR.
In the horticultural hybrids case, NBA reported that biological resources could not be traced to specific benefit claimers such as individual farmers or communities, or to a single identifiable geographic source, due to acquisition-linked sourcing. NBA reported that an NBA Expert Committee recommended, and NBA approved, a benefit-sharing utilisation modality for such traceability-limited cases.