On 5 September 2026 the National Biodiversity Authority announced that its cumulative Access and Benefit-Sharing disbursements had crossed ₹200 crore, and sanctioned a further ₹8.23 crore to 27 State Biodiversity Boards and 5 Union Territory Biodiversity Councils.
The money came from three seed companies — Nunhems India, East West Seeds India and Bayer Science and Innovation — for their use of four crops: bitter gourd, okra, chilli and onion. Because the seed had been bought on the open market or through traders, no individual farmer or village could be identified as the source. The Authority therefore split the proceeds among the States in proportion to the area under cultivation of each crop, using Ministry of Agriculture figures. Madhya Pradesh received the most (₹1.17 crore), followed by Maharashtra (₹1.01 crore) — the latter because Maharashtra holds more than 49% of India's onion area — then Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
That paragraph contains a whole legal doctrine. Unpack it.
The principle: a resource has a provider
Access and Benefit-Sharing rests on one idea: biological resources and the traditional knowledge attached to them belong to the country and communities that conserved them, so anyone who takes them for research or commerce must share the benefit with the provider. A seed company that develops a hybrid chilli from Indian germplasm is, in this view, using a national asset, and owes a return on it.
The principle is international law. The Convention on Biological Diversity, opened at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, has three objectives — conservation, sustainable use, and fair and equitable sharing of benefits from genetic resources. The third objective got its own instrument in the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-Sharing, adopted 2010, in force 2014; India ratified it in 2012, the year it hosted the CBD's COP-11 at Hyderabad.
Do not confuse Nagoya with the Convention's other protocol. The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (2000) governs the transboundary movement of living modified organisms. Nagoya is money; Cartagena is safety.
The Indian statute and its three tiers
India legislated first and ratified later: the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 predates Nagoya by eight years. It builds a three-tier structure that is the most-asked feature of the topic:
| Tier | Body | Level | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) | National; Chennai, est. 2003 | Approves access by foreign entities and applications for intellectual property on Indian biological resources; determines benefit-sharing |
| 2 | State Biodiversity Boards (SBBs) | State | Receive intimation from Indian entities for commercial use; advise the State |
| 3 | Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs) | Local body — panchayat, municipality | Maintain the People's Biodiversity Register; the frontline benefit claimers |
The division of labour by nationality is the core distinction. A foreign person or company needs the NBA's prior approval to obtain any Indian biological resource for research or commercial use. An Indian entity intimates the SBB instead. Applications for a patent on an invention based on Indian biological material also go through the NBA — the mechanism by which India defends against biopiracy of the kind seen in the earlier turmeric, neem and basmati patent disputes.
Benefit-sharing itself is set under the ABS Guidelines of 2014 as a sliding slab of 0.1 to 0.5 per cent of annual gross ex-factory sales, depending on turnover. Of what is collected, the larger share goes to the benefit claimers — the communities or individuals who provided the resource — with a small portion retained by the Board for administration.
The Madhya Pradesh problem, and its solution
Here is where the 5 September decision becomes interesting rather than routine. The Act assumes a provider can be found. When a company buys seed from a trader in a mandi, it cannot. Strict application would mean either no benefit-sharing at all — rewarding untraceable sourcing — or an arbitrary payee.
The Authority's Expert Committee chose a proxy: distribute by cultivated area, on the reasoning that the States growing the crop are, collectively, its custodians. It is not perfect — area is not the same as genetic contribution, and a State growing a hybrid today may not be where the landrace came from — but it converts an unenforceable claim into a payable one. Where the provider cannot be identified, the benefit goes to the geography of cultivation. That sentence is the innovation, and it is the answer to any question on how ABS works for market-sourced material.
The 2023 amendment
The Biological Diversity (Amendment) Act, 2023 reshaped the regime in ways that recur in questions:
- Decriminalised offences, replacing imprisonment with penalties, adjudicated by an officer.
- Exempted registered AYUSH practitioners and users of codified traditional knowledge from the intimation requirement, to ease the traditional-medicine sector.
- Widened the definition of a foreign-controlled company, closing a gap by which Indian-registered subsidiaries escaped NBA approval.
- Sought to encourage Indian companies to use domestic resources by lightening their compliance.
The trade-off is visible: the amendment was criticised for narrowing the ABS net at the same moment the Authority's collections were reaching their first ₹200 crore. Both facts belong in an honest answer.
🔑 Revision block
- 5 September 2026: NBA cumulative ABS disbursement > ₹200 crore; ₹8.23 crore sanctioned to 27 SBBs and 5 UTBCs from bitter gourd, okra, chilli, onion; payers Nunhems, East West Seeds, Bayer.
- Market-sourced seed → provider untraceable → distributed by area under cultivation; MP ₹1.17 cr, Maharashtra ₹1.01 cr (>49% of onion area), then AP, Karnataka.
- CBD, Rio 1992: three objectives — conservation, sustainable use, benefit-sharing. Nagoya Protocol (2010; in force 2014) = ABS; India ratified 2012, hosted COP-11 Hyderabad 2012. Cartagena (2000) = biosafety / LMOs.
- Biological Diversity Act, 2002: NBA (Chennai, 2003) → SBBs → BMCs (keep the People's Biodiversity Register).
- Foreign entities need NBA approval; Indian entities intimate the SBB. IP applications on Indian biological material go through the NBA.
- ABS Guidelines 2014: 0.1–0.5% of annual gross ex-factory sales, sliding by turnover.
- 2023 Amendment: decriminalised offences; exempted AYUSH practitioners and codified traditional knowledge; widened foreign-controlled company definition.
- Historical biopiracy cases: turmeric, neem, basmati.
🎯 Practice MCQs
Q1. The National Biodiversity Authority is headquartered at: (a) New Delhi (b) Chennai (c) Bengaluru (d) Dehradun → (b).
Q2. The Nagoya Protocol deals with: (a) biosafety (b) access and benefit-sharing (c) wetlands (d) migratory species → (b).
Q3. The Cartagena Protocol concerns: (a) benefit-sharing (b) living modified organisms (c) ozone (d) desertification → (b).
Q4. Under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002, a foreign company seeking an Indian biological resource must obtain approval from the: (a) State Biodiversity Board (b) National Biodiversity Authority (c) Ministry of Agriculture (d) Biodiversity Management Committee → (b).
Q5. People's Biodiversity Registers are maintained by: (a) the NBA (b) SBBs (c) Biodiversity Management Committees (d) Forest Departments → (c).
Q6. The Convention on Biological Diversity was opened for signature at: (a) Stockholm 1972 (b) Rio de Janeiro 1992 (c) Kyoto 1997 (d) Johannesburg 2002 → (b).
Q7. India hosted the CBD Conference of the Parties in 2012 at: (a) New Delhi (b) Hyderabad (c) Chennai (d) Bengaluru → (b) — COP-11.
Q8. The 2023 amendment to the Biological Diversity Act: (a) increased imprisonment terms (b) decriminalised offences and exempted AYUSH practitioners (c) abolished SBBs (d) removed the NBA's IP role → (b).
Q9. Which State received the largest ABS share in the September 2026 disbursement? (a) Maharashtra (b) Madhya Pradesh (c) Andhra Pradesh (d) Karnataka → (b).
Q10. Maharashtra's high share was attributed mainly to its cultivation of: (a) chilli (b) okra (c) onion (d) bitter gourd → (c) — over 49% of India's onion area.
Q11. Consider the following: 1. An Indian company must obtain NBA approval before commercial use of an Indian biological resource. 2. The Biological Diversity Act was enacted before India ratified the Nagoya Protocol. (a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) Both (d) Neither → (b) — Indian entities intimate the SBB; the Act (2002) predates ratification (2012).
Q12. The three objectives of the CBD are conservation, sustainable use and: (a) carbon trading (b) fair and equitable benefit-sharing (c) afforestation (d) species reintroduction → (b).
📋 How this gets asked (PYQ pattern)
Biodiversity-governance questions run in four shapes. The protocol item — Nagoya against Cartagena, with the subjects swapped. The tier item — NBA, SBB and BMC matched to level and function, or the foreign-against-Indian approval rule. The convention item — the CBD's year, venue and three objectives. The amendment item — what the 2023 Act changed.
The fresh 2026 hook is the ₹200 crore milestone and the area-based distribution for untraceable seed, which is unusual enough to appear as a reasoning question. A statement pair on the NBA's seat and the Nagoya-Cartagena distinction is the likeliest single item. As always, we describe the recurring pattern, not any exact past question.
Preparing for CDS or OTA? Biodiversity law is a small, closed set of facts — one convention, two protocols, three tiers — and the news only ever adds a number to it. Build the base with our notes on statutory commissions and the CDS/OTA geography hub, follow the daily CDS/OTA current affairs, and prepare with our faculty in the upcoming Cavalier courses in Delhi.
✍️ Written by Aditya Tiwari — Polity, environment & governance faculty at The Cavalier. Reviewed by the Cavalier Faculty Desk. The Cavalier, founded by ex-Army officers, has trained NDA/CDS/SSB aspirants since 2001 (Facebook · YouTube).
Source: PIB / Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, 5 September 2026. Statutory and treaty details cross-verified with independent sources.