Evaluate the role of Biodiversity Management Committees and People's Biodiversity Registers in operationalising fair and equitable benefit sharing in India.

India's Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) system has three tiers: the NBA, then the State Biodiversity Boards, then Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs). Under Section 41 of the Biological Diversity Act, 2002, every local body must set up a BMC [1]. BMCs keep People's Biodiversity Registers (PBRs), which record local resources and knowledge. Together they are the last mile of benefit sharing, but they deliver only part of what the law intends.

Positive role

• Legal claimant: benefit-sharing terms are agreed with the BMC. Since 2023 the NBA negotiates for it, which protects small communities from facing big firms alone [4].
• Proof of origin: PBRs record resources and the traditional knowledge (TK) linked to them, so they serve as evidence against biopiracy. The JPC wanted certificates of origin to come from local body records [5].
• Money channel: ₹45.05 lakh reached more than 90 BMCs in 10 States and 2 UTs [3]. ABS money also pays for updating PBRs and strengthening BMCs [2].
• Conservation incentive: firms pay for local breeds and crops such as Murrah buffalo semen, Mithun and horse gram [2]. This rewards communities that conserve them.

Limitations

• Weaker community voice: terms are now agreed between the user and the BMC "represented by NBA". Benefit claimers no longer negotiate directly [4].
• PBR paradox: the Act does not define "codified TK", and codified TK is exempt from benefit sharing. Knowledge written into a PBR could therefore count as codified and lose its claim, as the JPC warned [4][5].
• Slow flow: about ₹278 crore has been realised since 2008, but only a little over ₹200 crore has been disbursed [2].
• Opacity: NBA releases name the payers and the resources, but not which BMC received each payment [2].

Verdict and way forward

• BMCs and PBRs are essential, but they currently act more as passive recipients than as negotiators.
• Define codified TK by the classical texts listed in the First Schedule of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, as the JPC proposed [5]. This would protect PBR entries.
• Publish where each receipt goes, BMC by BMC, and build the capacity of BMCs to negotiate.

BMCs and PBRs connect India's ABS law to the people who hold the resources and the knowledge. If PBRs are legally protected, BMCs are given more say, and payments are tracked openly, they can deliver the fair and equitable sharing that the Nagoya Protocol and SDG target 15.6 aim for.