NBA disburses Rs 1.19 Crore to 29 State Biodiversity Boards and one UT Biodiversity Council under Access and Benefit Sharing Mechanism

1. At a Glance

• The National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) paid Rs 1.19 crore (exactly Rs 1,18,61,655) to 29 State Biodiversity Boards (SBBs) and one UT Biodiversity Council under the Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) mechanism. [1]
• The money came from ABS contributions by seed and agri-biotech companies that used agricultural biological resources (maize, rice, pearl millet, cotton) for research and commercial purposes. [1]
• New approach: the crops were bought through markets or traders, so individual benefit claimers could not be identified. Funds were therefore shared out in proportion to how much area each State grows the crop on. [1]
• Why it matters for UPSC: it connects the Biological Diversity Act, 2002, the Nagoya Protocol, the CBD COP 17, fiscal federalism in conservation, and farmers' rights over agrobiodiversity. [1][2]

2. Why in the News

• 17 October 2026: a PIB release (MoEFCC) announced the Rs 1.19 crore payment to 29 SBBs and 1 UTBC. [1]
• Timing: the release came just before CBD COP 17, held 19–30 October 2026 in Yerevan, Armenia. [1]
• The release presents the agriculture sector as a new and growing contributor to India's ABS system. [1]

3. Background & Evolution

• Biological Diversity Act, 2002: the law that set up the NBA–SBB system and the ABS regime. Its Section 32(2) governs how funds given to SBBs may be used. [1]
• Nagoya Protocol on ABS: India is a Party. Indian biodiversity law is framed as giving effect to the CBD and the Nagoya Protocol. [2]
• Early ratifier: India was among the countries that had ratified the Nagoya Protocol by October 2013, when the Protocol was still collecting the 50 ratifications it needed to enter into force. [3]
• Biological Diversity (Amendment) Bill: introduced in 2021, passed by the Lok Sabha, and cites India's Nagoya Protocol obligations in its recitals. [2]
• Milestones in the ABS system:
• Cumulative NBA ABS disbursements now exceed Rs 203 crore. [1]
• Of this, Rs 86 crore has come from the agriculture sector. [1]
• The October 2026 tranche used a distribution formula recommended by an Expert Committee and approved by the Authority. [1]

4. Core Static Facts

Item	Fact
Disbursing body	National Biodiversity Authority [1]
Parent ministry	Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change [1]
Recipients	29 SBBs + 1 UT Biodiversity Council [1]
Total amount	Rs 1,18,61,655 (≈ Rs 1.19 crore) [1]
Use of funds	Only for activities under Section 32(2), Biological Diversity Act, 2002 [1]
Permitted activities	Biodiversity documentation; conservation and sustainable use; strengthening local biodiversity governance; research; capacity building; community livelihoods [1]
Allocation basis	Proportional to estimated cultivation area of each resource [1]
Data source	Unified Portal for Agricultural Statistics (UPAg), Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare [1]
Why a formula was used	Resources bought via markets/traders, so individual benefit claimers could not be identified [1]
Crops covered	Maize (Zea mays L.), rice (Oryza sativa L.), pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum), cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) [1]
Contributors (maize/sweet corn)	Corteva Crop India; Pioneer Overseas Corp.; Pioneer Hi-Bred Pvt. Ltd.; Limagrain India (formerly Bisco Biosciences); Limagrain (Thailand); Limagrain Brasil S.A.; Syngenta India [1]
Limagrain India's other contributions	5 maize hybrids, 2 rice hybrids, 3 pearl millet hybrids [1]
Contributors (cotton)	Corteva: research on 16 varieties; Crystal Crop Protection: commercial use of 14 hybrids [1]
Cumulative NBA ABS disbursal	> Rs 203 crore in total; Rs 86 crore from agriculture [1]

Top 10 recipient States [1]:

Rank	State	Amount (Rs)
1	Maharashtra	19,46,149
2	Rajasthan	13,97,525
3	Madhya Pradesh	13,32,250
4	Karnataka	10,49,957
5	Telangana	9,55,754
6	Gujarat	8,84,783
7	Uttar Pradesh	8,26,607
8	Bihar	4,82,143
9	Andhra Pradesh	4,27,541
10	West Bengal	3,72,103
—	Others (remaining States + 1 UT)	21,86,843

• Derived from [1]:
• Maharashtra received about 16.4% of the total.
• The top 10 States together received about 81.6%.
• The table entries add up exactly to the stated total.

5. Multi-Dimensional Analysis

Economic

• Commercial users of genetic resources (private seed firms, including multinationals) now pay for conservation. This is an application of the "user pays" principle. [1]
• Agriculture's Rs 86 crore out of Rs 203+ crore cumulative is roughly 42%. Seeds and hybrids are becoming a major source of ABS revenue. [1]

Social / Equity

• The money goes to SBBs, not directly to farmers or communities. This is because market-sourced material cannot be traced back to individual holders. [1]
• Using cultivation area as a proxy rewards States that grow the most of a crop. That is not necessarily where the genetic diversity or traditional landraces are conserved. This is a fairness gap worth raising in Mains answers.

Environmental

• The funds are meant to support agricultural biodiversity, including traditional varieties and genetic diversity. [1]
• They also feed into biodiversity documentation and conservation under Section 32(2). [1]

Legal / Constitutional

• The statutory basis is the Biological Diversity Act, 2002, and spending is restricted to Section 32(2) purposes. [1]
• The domestic ABS regime gives effect to India's obligations as a Party to the Nagoya Protocol. [2]

Governance / Administrative

• Formula-based allocation (Expert Committee recommendation, approved by the Authority, using UPAg data) makes distribution transparent and rule-based when beneficiaries are untraceable. [1]
• Cooperative federalism: a national body collects the money, and State bodies spend it locally. [1]
• Bottleneck: traceability in seed supply chains is weak. Better People's Biodiversity Registers and sourcing records would allow benefits to reach specific communities.

Geopolitical

• The release positions India's ABS record ahead of COP 17 (Yerevan). It supports India's case, as a biodiversity-rich Global South country, for fair benefit sharing from genetic resources. [1][3]

6. Recent Developments (last 12–18 months)

• 17 Oct 2026: Rs 1.19 crore disbursed to 29 SBBs and 1 UTBC from agricultural ABS contributions. [1]
• As of Oct 2026: cumulative NBA disbursements exceed Rs 203 crore, of which Rs 86 crore is from agriculture. [1]
• 19–30 Oct 2026: CBD COP 17 in Yerevan, Armenia. [1]
• Note: other NBA ABS disbursements during 2026 were reported by media sources that are not on the whitelist. They are excluded here; check them on pib.gov.in.

7. Prelims Hooks

• The NBA disbursed Rs 1.19 crore to 29 SBBs + 1 UT Biodiversity Council in October 2026. [1]
• The highest-receiving State was Maharashtra (Rs 19.46 lakh), followed by Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. [1]
• ABS funds given to SBBs must be used only for activities under Section 32(2) of the Biological Diversity Act, 2002. [1]
• Allocation was proportional to cultivation area, using data from the Unified Portal for Agricultural Statistics (MoA&FW). [1]
• The formula was used because the resources were bought via markets/traders, so benefit claimers could not be identified. [1]
• The scientific name of pearl millet is Pennisetum glaucum. [1]
• The cotton species named is Gossypium hirsutum. [1]
• The maize species is Zea mays L.; the rice species is Oryza sativa L. [1]
• Cumulative NBA ABS disbursement is more than Rs 203 crore. [1]
• Rs 86 crore of ABS disbursements has come from the agriculture sector. [1]
• CBD COP 17: Yerevan, Armenia, 19–30 October 2026. [1]
• Limagrain India Pvt. Ltd. was formerly Bisco Biosciences Pvt. Ltd. [1]
• The NBA works under MoEFCC, not the Ministry of Agriculture. [1]
• India is a Party to the Nagoya Protocol on ABS. [2][3]

8. Why the Money Stops at the State Board, Not the Farmer

• The law promises benefits to people, but this money only reaches an institution
• Under the 2002 Act, benefits are to be shared with benefit claimers. These are the people who conserve biological resources, or who create or hold the traditional knowledge linked to them [5].
• In this case the seed was bought through traders. Nobody can say which village or which farmer conserved it, so the money is parked with SBBs [1].

• The farmer families who kept these crop lines alive for generations get nothing they can see.

• The 2021 Bill took local people out of the bargaining

• Under the original Act, benefit terms were agreed between the company, the local bodies concerned and the benefit claimers [5].
• The Bill changed this. Terms are now agreed between the company and the Biodiversity Management Committee (BMC, the village or ward-level biodiversity body), with the BMC represented by NBA [5].

• So local people do not sit at the table directly. A Delhi-or-Chennai-level body negotiates on their behalf [5].

• No step for asking communities first

• The Nagoya Protocol (Articles 6(2) and 7) asks countries to ensure prior informed consent of local and indigenous communities. This means asking them, and getting their agreement, before their resources or knowledge are used [5].
• PRS notes that the Bill has no mechanism for this consent [5].
• In Divya Pharmacy vs Union of India (2018), the Uttarakhand High Court said that fair benefit sharing under Nagoya is centred on local and indigenous communities [5]. A payment that ends at a State board sits uneasily with that reading.

9. What the Area Formula Rewards, and Whom It Misses

• The amounts are too thin to fund real work
• Rs 1.19 crore split across 30 bodies comes to about Rs 3.95 lakh each on average (derived from [1]).
• The 20 bodies outside the top 10 shared Rs 21.87 lakh, about Rs 1.1 lakh each (derived from [1]).

• Section 32(2) lists six kinds of use, from documentation to livelihoods [1]. Rs 1 lakh, spread over a whole State, cannot do much on any of them.

• The formula pays for how much a State grows, not where the genes came from

• A hybrid seed's value comes from its parent lines. Those are often bred from old local varieties (landraces).
• Landraces tend to survive in remote, small-farm areas. Those areas have little crop area.
• Large commercial maize or cotton belts score high on area, so Maharashtra alone got Rs 19.46 lakh [1]. Yet those belts mostly grow modern hybrids.

• Result: the formula can send the most money to the places that conserve the least diversity.

• The fair case for the formula — and where it falls short

• The strongest defence is cost. The material is untraceable [1], and searching for individual claimers would cost more than the money itself. Also, the formula was set by an Expert Committee and uses official UPAg data [1], so it is rule-based, not arbitrary.
• This is a fair point. With this little money and no traceability, area is a workable default.

• But being workable does not make it fair. The formula hides the traceability problem instead of fixing it. Each new tranche paid this way removes some of the pressure to fix sourcing records.

• A possible overlap with the FAO Plant Treaty

• Under ITPGRFA's Multilateral System, Annex I crop material held by member countries and in the public domain is covered automatically by the Treaty's own access rules [6].
• If a company accessed rice or maize material through that system, the question is whether India is charging a second ABS fee on the same material. The release does not say how this overlap was handled [1].

10. How the 2021 Amendment Could Shrink This Whole System

• The very registers meant to trace benefits could cancel them
• The Bill exempts users of codified traditional knowledge from sharing benefits. It does not define the term. Neither do the CBD or its protocols [5].
• WIPO defines codified knowledge as knowledge that is ordered, organised and classified in a systematic form [5].
• People's Biodiversity Registers (PBRs) record local resources and the knowledge linked to them, in exactly that systematic way [5].

• So, on WIPO's definition, almost all local traditional knowledge in PBRs could count as codified, and so be exempt [5]. The tool that could fix the traceability problem might end up ending the benefit claim.

• Weaker penalties make it easier for companies to stay away

• The original Act punished violations with up to five years in jail, a fine, or both. The Bill replaces this with penalties of Rs 1 lakh to Rs 50 lakh, plus up to Rs 1 crore for violations that continue [5].
• A government officer (Joint Secretary rank at the Centre, Secretary in a State) decides the penalty after an inquiry, not a judge in open court [5].

• The highest penalty is 100 times the lowest, and the officer gets no guidance on where in that range to fix it [5]. For a large seed company, the cost of not paying becomes small and hard to predict.

• Exam caution: these points come from the PRS analysis of the 2021 Bill. Before quoting them, check whether the final 2023 Act changed them.

11. Who Should Fix What

• MoEFCC should define "codified traditional knowledge" narrowly in the Rules
• PRS flagged that leaving it undefined could exempt almost all local knowledge [5].

• The Rules should state clearly that knowledge recorded in a PBR does not become exempt just because it is written down.

• NBA and SBBs should build a consent step that matches Nagoya

• Nagoya Articles 6(2) and 7 require prior informed consent of communities [5]. The Bill created no such step [5].

• A simple start: before signing benefit terms with a company, the SBB consults the BMCs where the crop lines originate.

• NBA's Expert Committee should add a diversity factor to the formula

• Today, money is shared by cultivation area alone [1].

• Part of each tranche could instead go by how many landraces of that crop are recorded in each State's PBRs. Districts that conserve diversity would then get a share, not only the big growing belts.

• NBA should require seed companies to record where they got their material

• The formula exists only because buying through markets and traders broke traceability [1].
• If companies declared the source of parent lines when applying for approval, future benefits could follow the material to a specific area or BMC.

12. Anchors for Answers

• Data: Rs 86 crore of the Rs 203+ crore cumulative ABS disbursement (about 42%) has come from agriculture, so seeds are now a core ABS revenue source [1]
• Data: The 20 bodies outside the top 10 shared Rs 21.87 lakh, about Rs 1.1 lakh each, which is far too thin for Section 32(2) work (derived from [1])
• Report/Committee: PRS Legislative Brief on the Biological Diversity (Amendment) Bill, 2021 (31 March 2022): it flags the undefined "codified traditional knowledge" exemption, the loss of communities' direct role in benefit terms, and the missing prior-informed-consent mechanism [5]
• Law/Case: Divya Pharmacy vs Union of India (2018, Uttarakhand High Court): fair benefit sharing under Nagoya is centred on local and indigenous communities [5]; Nagoya Protocol Articles 6(2) and 7 (prior informed consent) [5]; Section 32(2), Biological Diversity Act, 2002 [1]
• Comparison: ITPGRFA Multilateral System (FAO): Annex I crop material held by member countries and in the public domain is covered automatically by the Treaty's own pooled access rules, not country-by-country bargaining [6]

13. Mains Relevance

• GS-III: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation; Biodiversity; Agriculture (seed sector, IPR in agriculture).
• GS-II: Statutory bodies; Centre–State relations / cooperative federalism; International agreements (CBD, Nagoya Protocol).
• Possible question stems: 1. Access and Benefit Sharing under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 tries to turn biodiversity into a conservation resource. Examine how effective it has been, with reference to recent disbursements to the agriculture sector. (15 marks) 2. When benefit claimers cannot be traced, formula-based distribution of ABS funds becomes necessary but is imperfect. Critically analyse. (10 marks) 3. Discuss how the Nagoya Protocol has shaped India's domestic biodiversity governance framework. What challenges remain in making sure local communities benefit? (15 marks)

14. Related Topics to Study Next

• Biological Diversity (Amendment) Act, 2023: changed ABS obligations and how Indian vs foreign-controlled entities are treated. [2]
• Nagoya Protocol and the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety: both are CBD protocols; Cartagena has its own Nagoya–Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol. [3][4]
• Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework: the main agenda backdrop for COP 17.
• People's Biodiversity Registers and Biodiversity Management Committees: the local institutions that should ideally receive ABS benefits.
• PPV&FR Act, 2001: farmers' rights and benefit sharing for plant varieties. It overlaps with ABS on seeds.
• ITPGRFA (FAO Plant Treaty): a separate multilateral ABS system for food crops such as rice and maize.
• Digital Sequence Information (DSI) and the Cali Fund: a new ABS frontier under negotiation at the CBD.
• Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL): protects against biopiracy and complements ABS.

15. NCERT Concepts to Revise

• Access and benefit sharing (Economy): The core mechanism: companies using genetic resources share benefits, here paid out as Rs 1.19 crore to State boards.
• Biological Diversity Act 2002 (Geography): The law creating the NBA, State Biodiversity Boards and the ABS regime; Section 32(2) limits how the funds are spent.
• Nagoya Protocol (Geography): International ABS protocol that India's law gives effect to; the note's consent and community-benefit critique rests on it.
• Biodiversity Management Committees (Geography): Local bodies that keep People's Biodiversity Registers and should ideally receive benefits; the note argues money stops short of them.
• Farmers' rights (Economy): Farmers who conserved crop varieties get no visible benefit here; links to the seed-sector and landrace fairness debate.
• Genetic diversity (Geography): The area-based formula rewards big growing States, not those conserving diverse landraces; this is the note's central fairness gap.

16. Common Errors / Trap Areas

• Wrong ministry: the NBA is under MoEFCC. MoA&FW only supplied the cultivation data through UPAg. [1]
• Wrong recipients: the money went to SBBs and a UT Biodiversity Council, not directly to farmers or BMCs. [1]
• Millet confusion: pearl millet (bajra) is Pennisetum glaucum. Do not confuse it with finger millet (ragi, Eleusine coracana). [1]
• Protocol confusion: the Nagoya Protocol (ABS, under the CBD) is different from the Nagoya–Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol (liability and redress, under the Cartagena Protocol), which entered into force on 5 March 2018. [3][4]
• Number confusion: "Rs 1.19 crore" is this tranche. "Rs 203 crore" is the cumulative total, and "Rs 86 crore" is the cumulative agriculture share. [1]