After constituting the Punjab Biodiversity Board
to regulate and promote biological resources, the state government has
now directed all districts to constitute biodiversity management
committees (BMCs) and technical support groups (TSGs).
Issuing a date-bound direction, the state
government has asked all Deputy Commissioners to take up the matter
with their subordinates and facilitate the constitution of BMCs and
TSGs by March 31. According to information available, the BMCs will be
responsible for regulating access to biological resources within
respective jurisdictions for commercial purposes, charges collection
fee (wherever required) and maintaining register of such accesses
granted by it. Further, it will be responsible for promoting
conservation and ensuring sustainable utilisation and equitable
sharing of benefits from the local biodiversity.
The BMCs will initially be set-up at the
district level (zila parishad) with representatives from areas of
biological importance within every district. These will be guided by
TSGs, which are also to be set up at the district level, comprising
district level officers from the Departments of Agriculture, Forest,
Education and health. It has also been informed that since ADCs
(Development) were the CEO of the zila parishads, hence the BMCs and
TSGs will be constituted under the chairmanship of the ADCs.
Laying stress on the date, the Secretary,
Department of Science, Technology and Environment, Viswajeet Khanna,
in his recent letter to the DCs, mentioned that the National
Biodiversity Authority (NBA) had already released Rs 8 lakh as a
one-time grant-in-aid to the BMCs for preparation of PBRs in 16
districts at the rate of Rs 50,000 per district, which were to be
released and utilised before March 31.
