Maharashtra received a fund of Rs 2.41 crore fund under Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) mechanism from the Central Government to support biodiversity conservation, sustainable utilisation of biological resources and livelihood. The state received the highest fund among all the 11 cotton growing states in the country. The National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) has released a total of Rs 6.67 crore under ABS for 11 cotton-growing states.

 

The objective of the fund is to benefit the commercial utilisation of biological resources in biodiversity conservation and community welfare under the Biological Diversity Act. Along with Maharashtra, other beneficiary states include Gujarat (Rs 1.38 cr), Telangana (Rs 1.06 cr), Karnataka (Rs 40 lakh), Rajasthan (Rs 36 lakh), Madhya Pradesh (Rs 31 lakh), Andhra Pradesh (Rs 23 lakh), Haryana (Rs 23 lakh), Odisha (Rs 14 lakh), Punjab (Rs 9 lakh) and Tamil Nadu (Rs 6 lakh). Along with this, the remaining amount of Rs 95 lakh of the total allocation has been earmarked for the NBA as per the Biological Diversity Rules. Based of the total area under cotton cultivation, the remaining fund will be utilised through All Indian Co-ordinated Research Project on Cotton (AICRP) and ICAR.

 

The allocation will support on-farm and ex-situ conservation of biological resources, documentation and updation of People’s Biodiversity Registers, ecosystem restoration strengthening of Biodiversity Heritage Sites, documentation of traditional knowledge, biodiversity research, capacity building of Biodiversity Management Committees etc. The initiative also establishes a transparent and science-based model for distributing ABS benefits where biological resources are sourced through complex supply chains. By linking benefit-sharing to the verified geographical occurrence of biological resources, it ensures that ABS reaches biodiversity-rich regions even when individual beneficiaries can not be identified.