To bring in effective compliance of Biological Diversity Act, 2002 by Ayush units in the state, Maharashtra State Biodiversity Board (MSBB) will host a workshop shortly in Pune with support from local self government in coordination with district administration.

Similar kind of workshops will be planned in coordination with Biodiversity Management Committees (BMC) at respective villages and talukas for successful implementation of the sensitisation programme at all the 36 districts of Maharashtra aimed at sustainable use of bio-resources. This will have involvement of CEOs of Zila Parishads, District Collectors and Professors of Zoology and Botany from Academic institutions of the state.

Informs N D Choudhari, an official from MSBB, "The sensitisation programme will cover 27, 000 gram panchayats and will give information to the stakeholders on the formation of Biodiversity Management Committees (BMC) and Public Biodiversity Register (PBR), which will pave way for implementation of compliance at all levels."

The sensitisation programme comes in the wake of ayurvedic manufacturers expressing discontentment and utter lack of clarity over serving of notices under Section 7 of the Biological Diversity Act, 2002. The said section under the act stipulates intimating MSBB in a prescribed format details of the plant based raw material and details of source attached with a fee of Rs.5000. Till date, 1500 notices have been served and only 10 manufacturers have complied and responded to the notices.

A manufacturer referring to the notice argues that the manufacturer should not be held accountable or liable for the raw material when it has been sourced from the supplier or the trader. Details of the source of raw material lies with the supplier or trader exclusively. Besides this, license fee is only Rs.600 for three years and the product fee is Rs.100, registration fee of Rs.5000 defies all logic and is unacceptable.

Officials from MSBB clarify,"Compliance to the Act is actually meant to benefit the manufacturer as it will encourage judicious use of the respective bio-resource in the long term from agriculture and forest areas. This is more relevant as certain plant based raw materials are today unavailable because of the indiscriminate exploitative practices due to lack of effective enforcement of regulations."

As per the act, manufacturer is accountable to share details of the source from where raw material has been procured and share 2 per cent to 5 per cent of the revenue generated out of the production to further the cause of biodiversity conservation and its sustainable use.

According to Section 7 and 24 (2) of the act, organisations extracting plant based material for commercial purpose without intimation to MSBB are liable under Section 55 (2) of the act and shall be punishable with imprisonment which may extend up to 3 years with fine or 5 years with fine or both. The notice served states that it is required to share benefit among concerned Biodiversity Management Committees (BMC) of the state under direction from MSBB.

The notice states that the application in Form - I under Rule 17 of Maharashtra Biological Diversity Rules, 2008 is available on website www.maharashtrabiodiversityboard.gov.in which can be downloaded. The manufacturer can apply in aforesaid Form -I and send it to the MSBB accompanied with a fee of Rs.5,000 in the form of a demand draft drawn in favour of "The Member Secretary Maharashtra State Biodiversity Board (MSBB)", payable at Nagpur.

It is also required to furnish information like name and address of the company, name of panchayat or Nagar Palika from where raw material has been acquired, name and quantity of biological resources used annually, area and annual production (year wise) and annual gross turn over (gross revenue).

The Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani (ASU) industry had also expressed discontentment in the past over the creation of separate biodiversity board in each state under the Biodiversity Act, stating that it is leading to a lot of confusion among the ASU manufacturers, further complicating the process of acquiring plant raw materials from the forest.