NBA Gives Rs 1.19 Crore to 29 State Biodiversity Boards

The National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) has released Rs 1.19 crore collected under the Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) mechanism to 29 State Biodiversity Boards and one Union Territory Biodiversity Council. The money came from companies that used agricultural biological resources for research and for commercial purposes, and it is meant for conservation, sustainable use of those resources and the welfare of local communities.

Why the money was shared this way

The resources in question were bought from markets and traders, so no individual benefit claimer could be identified. The Authority therefore followed a formula suggested by an Expert Committee and cleared by the Authority itself: each State received a share in proportion to the estimated area under cultivation of the resource concerned, taken from the statistics of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare on its Unified Portal for Agricultural Statistics.

Which States got the most

Maharashtra stood first in the allocation list. Rajasthan came second and Madhya Pradesh third. The next places went to Karnataka, Telangana, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal, and what remained was divided among the other States and the Union Territory. The whole distribution added up to Rs 1,18,61,655.

The crops and the companies

The payments arose from the use of maize, rice, pearl millet and cotton. Seed and crop science firms contributed for maize and sweet corn varieties, for maize, rice and pearl millet hybrids, and for cotton varieties and hybrids used in research and in commercial sale.

How the States must spend it

The funds may be used only for the purposes listed in Section 32(2) of the Biological Diversity Act, 2002. These cover documentation of biodiversity, conservation and sustainable use, stronger local governance of biodiversity, research, capacity building and better livelihoods for communities.

The larger picture

The Authority has so far given out Rs 86 crore realised from the agriculture sector alone, and more than Rs 203 crore in all. The release comes as India prepares for the seventeenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, to be held from 19 to 30 October 2026 at Yerevan in Armenia.