Implementation of the Biodiversity Act in its present form is going to be extremely difficult for the manufacturers of Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani (ASU) drugs as the law is too complex and confusing, according to Ayurvedic Drug Manufacturers Association (ADMA).

In a submission made to Directorate of Ayush, Maharashtra, ADMA explained the issues related to the process complexities, structural problems and the wrong interpretation of the Biodiversity Act.

Dr. Kuldeep Raj Kohli, director of Directorate of Ayush, Maharashtra, has considered the matter and written a letter to the Minister of Ayush, government of India, minister of forests, environment and climate change and FDA, Maharashtra.

Kohli says, “As per the Act whosoever is using the natural resources has to pay 2 per cent as an access benefit sharing (ABS) to the state biodiversity board. But the major problem is everyone in the industry has to pay this ABS including the grower, vendor, processor and industry. The resources are collected from different states and it is difficult for everyone to pay every state biodiversity diversity board. We have received the presentation from ADMA and on my part, I have written to the government of India that it (ABS) should not be made compulsory for those who have been traditionally using the raw materials”

Explaining the problem related to process complexities, the letter states that the user of the biological resources is required to furnish 'prior intimation' to respective state biodiversity boards. The application form required the applicant to mention the precise location of collection/accession of the raw material. However, almost all users of the biological resources particularly, the ASU sector has been traditionally dependent on trading channels, due to which the precise origin of the biological resources is not traceable.

Further it said that each company is required to provide such prior intimations to multiple state biodiversity boards because of the fact that all sorts of biological resources used by each company do not originate in one single state, though they can be procured from one single trader based in one particular location. The application/prior intimation fee is very high and variable. At present the prescribed application fee ranges between Rs. 1,000 to Rs. 10,000

The MoEF has listed only 193 species to be exempt from the law as of now, however this list did not include common agricultural commodities like wheat, rice, oil, seeds etc. due to the confusion created by language used in the notified list. The state biodiversity boards have interpreted that the exemption is only for trading but not for value addition/processing and this interpretation has lead to the conclusion that, industries cannot use any sort of biological resources for commercial purposes without complying with the Act and rules, which has lead to the structural problem in the law.

The association says “The Act by its spirit is 'resource centric' but the state biodiversity boards have been working to convert it into a revenue centric model by attempting to use the prevailing gaps in the Act which has led to undesirable conflicts between the state biodiversity boards and the industry.”

Further it explains the wrong interpretation of the Act by state biodiversity board. “Due to lack of clarity about the applicability of the law, the state biodiversity boards are issuing notices to companies operating within the respective state even if the company is not using any biological resources native of the state and the state biodiversity boards are fleecing the companies to submit form – 1 all the biological resources they are using”.

ADMA also points out that the state biodiversity boards are taking shelter under Section 24(2) of the Biodiversity Act and are issuing orders to the applicants to pay exorbitant amounts of money under the ABS/royalties though the SBBs are not empowered under the Act to charge royalties/access fess/contribution/ABS

The ASU sector uses diverse species for manufacturing traditional medicinal formulations and since these medicinal plants are collected from many states, each company has to interact with multiple biodiversity boards which is proving too lengthy and cumbersome.