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The National Biodiversity Authority released ₹15.52 crore in Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) proceeds arising from mustard genetic resources on 13 August 2026.
The money was collected from M/s Pioneer Overseas Corporation, which used Indian biological resources to develop ten commercial hybrid varieties of mustard (Brassica juncea).
It is being shared among 26 State Biodiversity Boards and 3 Union Territory Biodiversity Councils in proportion to the area under mustard cultivation.
Rajasthan received the largest share at ₹6.43 crore, followed by Uttar Pradesh (₹2.28 crore) and Madhya Pradesh (₹1.86 crore).
The NBA's cumulative ABS releases have reached ₹182.5 crore, of which ₹116.22 crore was distributed in the previous twelve months.
ABS is the legal principle that whoever accesses a country's biological resources or the traditional knowledge attached to them must share the monetary and non-monetary benefits that flow from their commercial use. In India it operates under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002: a user seeking access approaches the National Biodiversity Authority (for foreign entities) or the relevant State Biodiversity Board (for Indian entities), and the approval carries a benefit-sharing condition. The money collected is not retained centrally as revenue — it is channelled back to the states and, wherever a specific community or grower can be identified, to that community.
Simple Analogy: It works like a royalty on a song. A company may use the tune commercially, but the original composer is owed a cut of the earnings. Here the 'composer' is the farming community and the ecosystem that produced and conserved the genetic material.
India's parent legislation on conservation, sustainable use of biological resources and fair benefit sharing. It created the three-tier structure of NBA, State Biodiversity Boards and Biodiversity Management Committees, and it is the statute under which this ABS payment was collected and released.
The most recent amendment to the 2002 Act, which revised the compliance and penalty framework governing access to biological resources.
Constitutes the State Biodiversity Fund, to which grants from the NBA and benefit-sharing amounts received by a State Biodiversity Board are credited. Funds released to states in an ABS disbursement flow through this route.
The global treaty from the Rio Earth Summit that first made fair and equitable sharing of benefits from genetic resources one of its three core objectives, alongside conservation and sustainable use. India's 2002 Act is its domestic implementation.
The supplementary agreement to the CBD, adopted at Nagoya, Japan in 2010 and in force since 12 October 2014, that gives ABS its detailed international architecture. India ratified it in 2012.
Statutory and autonomous body that regulates access to India's biological resources by foreign entities, advises the Centre on biodiversity matters, opposes wrongful IPR claims abroad on Indian bio-resources, and approves benefit-sharing arrangements
Regulate access requests by Indian entities within a state, collect benefit-sharing amounts and route them through the State Biodiversity Fund; 26 of them received a share of this disbursement
The local-body tier, constituted by panchayats and municipalities to conserve local biodiversity and to prepare and update the People's Biodiversity Register documenting local species and traditional knowledge
Nodal ministry administering the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 and the parent ministry of the NBA
One of the NBA's statutory functions is to oppose the grant of intellectual property rights abroad on Indian biological resources or associated traditional knowledge — the concern that produced the Biological Diversity Act in the first place.
A parallel defensive mechanism, jointly run by CSIR and the Ministry of Ayush, that documents Indian traditional knowledge so patent offices worldwide can reject claims over it.
Mustard is a leading rabi oilseed and central to the National Mission on Edible Oils; commercial hybrid development in Brassica juncea is directly tied to reducing import dependence.
A second Indian benefit-sharing channel, this one for plant varieties, which rewards farmers and communities for conserving the landraces that breeders use — a useful contrast with the ABS route.
GS Paper III > Environment: conservation, biodiversity; GS Paper II > Statutory bodies and international conventions
General Awareness > Environment and Indian polity: statutory bodies
General Awareness > Current affairs and environment
The legal mechanism for sharing monetary and non-monetary benefits arising from the use of biological resources and associated traditional knowledge with the country and communities that provided them.
A document maintained by a Biodiversity Management Committee recording local biological resources, their uses and the traditional knowledge associated with them.
An area of unique biodiversity notified by a state government under the Biological Diversity Act for special protection.
The scientific name of Indian mustard, a major rabi oilseed crop grown largely in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana.