An innovative state bill initiated by the Kerala Government about eight years ago to protect the intellectual property rights of the state's rich flora and fauna and tribal knowledge, is yet to take off following the opposition from a lobby of scientists and officials who have been trying to sabotage the bill.

The Tribal Intellectual Property Rights Bill, a first of its kind bill initiated in India, was mainly intended to prevent corporates and overseas companies patenting the traditional medicinal knowledge and rare herbs of Western Ghats, rich with 2,800 species of herbs including 900 odd medicinal herbs used in various traditional medicines. Western Ghats figures among the world's 28 top biological hot spots, and one among the two in India.

According to various sources, the bill, which was drafted and discussed threadbare by various stakeholders for the past few years, has been lost in the maze of files of various official departments, allegedly as part of a conscious effort to dump the bill into oblivion.

Sources said though the various Governments who came into power since 1994 were interested in legislating the bill, an active nexus of officials and scientists were successful in preventing its legislation. Some sources said that the confusion also prevailed over the powers of a state to legislate and penalize IPR infringement as the centre had come up with a Bio-Diversity Bill in 2000. When the draft was discussed on October 16, 2001 at Kanakakkunnu in Thiruvananthapuram, thanks to the initiative of the present Tribal Welfare Minister, the provisions of the bill were opposed strongly by a group of experts present at the meeting, said sources.

The bill was initiated in 1994 by a group of scientists and was nurtured by the Kerala Institute for Research, Training and Development Studies of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (KIRTADS), an autonomous body attached to the state Government. K. Abdul Latheef, former faculty member of National Law School of India and joint coordinator of Kerala Environment and Human Rights Research Centre, Kozhikode, was the mastermind to draft the bill on behalf of KIRTADS.

The draft envisages setting up of tribal intellectual property rights (IPRs) council with judicial powers to monitor and prevent 'exploitation' and 'misuse' of tribal IPRs and provision for maximum punishment of four years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 500,000 to IPR violators. The draft also envisages setting up of a village level mechanism, monitored by each Panchayaths, to create data and maintain bio-diversity registers of each village in the state.

The preamble of the bill says that it is to provide for the determination, preservation, protection and improvement of the tribal traditional system related to medicine, agricultural practices and knowledge of wild flora and fauna used for food as well as shelter. The bill envisages providing economic and social benefits to the state in general and tribal communities in particular as well as protecting the intellectual properties from piracy.

It is to be noted the Kerala Forest Research Institute (KFRI) and the KIRTADS had initiated efforts to create biodiversity registers in the state. Comprehensive biodiversity registers were created in 86 villages in the Ernakulam district, with the help of about 8000 trained volunteers, and KFTRI had initiated to create biodiversity registers in six other districts. KIRTADS had identified about 35 scheduled tribal communities and 13 other tribal communities in the state having knowledge on a number of traditional medicines and other agricultural practices. The bill also assumes significance considering the Kerala Forest Department's recent initiative to create a comprehensive biodiversity registers in the state, noted sources.