Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) has issued a draft notification related to guidelines on access to biological resources and benefits sharing to boost sustainable use of bio-resources across the country.
State biodiversity boards hail the draft notification as a welcome change as it will notify uniform rules thus allowing them to collect from domestic and foreign companies a certain percentage of their ex-factory gross sales of products using biological resources and traditional knowledge. Following the draft notification, a national guideline on benefit sharing for Ayush units will be notified by the Central government shortly, according to officials associated with the development.
As per the draft notification, when the biological resources are accessed for commercial utilisation or the bio-survey and bio-utilisation leads to commercial utilisation, the applicant shall have the option to pay the benefit sharing ranging from 0.1 to 0.5 per cent at the following graded percentages of the annual gross ex-factory sale of the product which shall be worked out based on the annual gross ex – factory sale minus government taxes.
As per the Biological Diversity Act, 2002, Ayush manufacturer has the responsibility to share details of the source from where the raw material has been procured and also a certain per cent of the revenue generated out of the production for its sustainable use. [Source]
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