Even as the Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) Guidelines prepared by National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) have royalty slabs for domestic companies towards sustainable use of bio- resource and has been notified recently, an official associated with the development says that guidelines if not implemented would lead to a revenue loss to the respective boards to the tune of Rs.10,000 crore annually and even more. NBA may also have to bear a loss of Rs.5,000 crore annually.
According to sources, guidelines on ABS have been held back in the past 10 years due to pressure from powerful industry lobbies during successive government regimes as it helped save companies thousands of crores that they would have to shell out as royalties every year. Besides this, NBA is without a full time chairman since Balakrishna Pasupati was forced to resign in February 2014, six months before his term as NBA chairman ended.
The ABS guidelines which took the NBA six years to notify the rules mandates collection from domestic and foreign companies 0.1-1 per cent of their ex-factory gross sales of products using biological resources and traditional knowledge.
A conservative estimate by the industry puts this loss at Rs.25,000 crore annually even before the guideline was notified. Explains Dr R G Soni, former member secretary, Madhya Pradesh State Biodiversity Board (MPSBB), "Due to lack of uniform benefit sharing guideline which is now notified, boards of all the states have been losing Rs.25,000 crore every year since 2004. Similarly, NBA has been losing Rs.10,000 crore every year since 2004. "
Dr Soni is credited to have initiated the action during his tenure at MPSBB following which companies moved to NGT. However, NGT approved the actions taken by MPSBB finally.
This money would go to the National Biodiversity Fund and to communities from whom such resources or knowledge have been accessed by the companies.
A wide range of industries like biotech, pharma, forestry, herbal, sugar, distilleries, food processing, soya etc use biological resources with its value pegged at around US$ 1 trillion globally.
The much delayed notification states that the benefit sharing slabs for domestic companies are 0.1 per cent, 0.2 per cent and 0.5 per cent on annual ex-factory gross sales of a product, depending on if the sales are less than Rs.1 crore, between Rs.1-5 crore and above Rs.5 crore, respectively.
The guidelines will be reviewed periodically, at least once in five years. The monetary benefits will go to the National Biodiversity Fund for sharing with 28 state biodiversity boards, more than 32,000 local biodiversity management committees and specific individuals or communities from whom biological resources or traditional knowledge were accessed.
Under the Biodiversity Act, foreign companies require the NBA’s prior approval to access India’s biological resources and traditional knowledge. Domestic companies do not need prior approval but must intimate the state biodiversity board concerned.
Last year, several companies had approached the NGT against the Madhya Pradesh biodiversity board that issued notices for benefit-sharing, arguing that no other state was implementing the ABS provisions of the Biodiversity Act. On August 29, 2014 the NGT gave the NBA six weeks to notify the ABS Guidelines.
Fair and equitable sharing of benefits accrued from utilisation of genetic resources is a key objective of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), adopted in June 1992 and ratified by 194 countries, including India. In compliance of the CBD, the Biological Diversity Act was passed in 2002 and the Biological Diversity Rules followed in 2004.