The much awaited National Biotechnology Regulatory Authority Bill (NBRA Bill), which has repeatedly been finding a place in the tentative list for transaction of business for the last several sessions of Parliament, may ultimately be introduced in Parliament during the monsoon session which is scheduled to begin on August 8.

Though there are several Bills related to pharma and health sectors which have been waiting in the wings to be introduced in Parliament for its final nod, sources said that only NBRA Bill may be introduced during this session as other major bills are are entangled in various departmental procedures before being introduced in Parliament.

Sources said that while other bills like ART Bill, HIV/AIDS Bill, Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research on Human Subjects Bill, Medical Devices Bill, etc. are pending in different government departments for clearance, the NBRA Bill has already cleared all these technical and bureaucratic hurdles and the introduction of the Bill in during this session, which is scheduled to conclude on September 7, is just a formality.

The NBRA Bill, drafted by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), seeks to make NBRA as an independent, autonomous, statutory agency to safeguard the health and safety of the people of India and to protect the environment by identifying risks posed by, or as a result of, modern biotechnology, and managing those risks through regulating the safe development and deployment of biotechnology products and processes.

It seeks to establish Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India to regulate research, import, transport, use of organism and product produced from modern biotechnology. It also seeks to set up the NBRA as an independent, autonomous, statutory agency to safeguard the health and safety of the people and to regulate the safe development and deployment of biotechnology products and processes in the country. Once in place, the Authority will have overriding powers on matters related to the development and deployment of biotechnology products and processes in the country.