The National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) has released ₹6.67 crore under the Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) mechanism to support biodiversity conservation, sustainable utilization of biological resources, and livelihood enhancement in 11 cotton-growing states. This disbursement represents benefits derived from the commercial utilization of biological resources being reinvested in biodiversity conservation and community welfare under the Biological Diversity Act.
The benefit-sharing amount of ₹7.62 crore was realized from Bayer Science & Innovation Pvt. Ltd. (formerly Monsanto Holdings Pvt. Ltd.) for research involving 25,431 cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) varieties. Since the biological resources were accessed through traders and intermediaries, identifying individual conservers or benefit claimers was not feasible, requiring the NBA to develop transparent modalities for ABS amount utilization through an Expert Committee.
The allocation methodology distinguishes between situations where geographical occurrence can be reliably established using published records (funds allocated to State Biodiversity Boards) and where source cannot be established (funds retained in National Biodiversity Fund under Section 27 of Biological Diversity Act). For this disbursement, the NBA allocated ₹6.67 crore among eleven states based on geographical distribution of cotton cultivation using data from the All India Coordinated Research Project on Cotton (AICRP), ICAR, proportional to each state's area under cotton cultivation.
State-wise allocation breakdown: Maharashtra received ₹2.41 crore (36.1%), Gujarat ₹1.38 crore (20.7%), Telangana ₹1.06 crore (15.9%), Karnataka ₹0.40 crore (6.0%), Rajasthan ₹0.36 crore (5.4%), Madhya Pradesh ₹0.31 crore (4.6%), Andhra Pradesh ₹0.23 crore (3.4%), Haryana ₹0.23 crore (3.4%), Odisha ₹0.14 crore (2.1%), Punjab ₹0.09 crore (1.3%), and Tamil Nadu ₹0.06 crore (0.9%). The remaining ₹0.95 crore was earmarked for the NBA as per Biological Diversity Rules.
The funds will support multiple conservation and development activities including on-farm and ex-situ conservation of biological resources, documentation and updation of People's Biodiversity Registers, ecosystem restoration, strengthening of Biodiversity Heritage Sites, documentation of traditional knowledge, biodiversity research, development of digital biodiversity databases, capacity building of Biodiversity Management Committees, awareness programmes, and livelihood enhancement.
This initiative establishes a transparent and science-based model for distributing ABS benefits where biological resources are sourced through complex supply chains, ensuring benefits reach biodiversity-rich regions even when individual beneficiaries cannot be identified. With this disbursement, the total ABS funds released by the NBA have reached ₹152.24 crore. The mechanism contributes to implementing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, particularly Target 13 on fair and equitable sharing of benefits from genetic resource utilization, while supporting Target 4 on conserving genetic diversity.
The NBA is a statutory body established under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002, functioning under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, regulating access to India's biological resources and implementing the Nagoya Protocol's principle of fair and equitable benefit sharing. Cotton occupies a significant position in India's agricultural landscape, supporting nearly 4-5 crore people across the value chain while serving as a global reservoir of cotton genetic diversity.