NEW DELHI: What is `sajeevani'? Where are `kurunji' flowers found? How does a Great Indian Bustard bird look like? Which are the animals used in cancer studies?

Answers to these and a million other questions on animal, bird, and plant or for that matter marine and microbial resources of the country are now just a mouse click away. All you need is a windows-based PC and access to a set of nine CDs produced by the Department of Biotechnology under the Union Ministry of Science and Technology.

Called `Jeeva Sampada,' the first-ever digitised inventory of India's vast bio-resource provides data on 39,000 species and offers images, distribution maps and an interactive data retrieval system.

It offers information in 10 modules on taxonomy distribution, uses, chemical composition, economic potential and other literature on 2,700 medicinal and economically important plants, 9,000 species of animals, 17,000 microbes and 7,000 marine organisms.

Releasing the database, claimed to be the largest on bio-resource at about seven GB (gigabytes) on Tuesday, the Union Minister for Science and Technology, Kapil Sibal, said it was designed to be of use to a wide range of users, from students, teachers and the general public, to ecologists, conservation-biologists, foresters, policy makers and patent offices.

Web-based portal

Mr. Sibal also launched a web-based portal called Indian Bioresource Information Network, which seeks to network the otherwise independent databases and information on the country's biodiversity as one window system for the benefit of research scientists, bio-resource managers, policy makers, entrepreneurs and the common man.

The portal is in the form of a distributed database infrastructure and provide access to both spatial and non-spatial databases available with various scientific agencies in the country.

The University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore, will host the non-spatial node for the network and Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, Dehradun, its spatial node. The web address of the network is: www.ibin.co.in

Biodiversity maps

The Union Minister also released an atlas of maps of the biodiversity of East Coast, Eastern Ghats and Central India prepared using the geospatial data generated under a joint project of the Department of Biotechnology and the Department of Space using the techniques of satellite remote sensing and the geographical information system.

The maps provide location-specific information for more than 5,000 plant species, including their current status.

The maps are expected to be of value in the context of identifying areas of high priority for bio-prospecting and conservation.

The databases, which cover 42 per cent of the total forest cover of the country, have been integrated into a web-enabled biodiversity information system to facilitate dissemination and use of the data.

The DBT and DOS had already brought out similar maps in 2002 for eastern and western Himalayas, Western Ghats and Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which had covered 44 per cent of the country's forest cover.

Releasing the three products at the inaugural session of the fourth meeting of the National Bioresource Development Board, Mr. Sibal urged the members of the Board to come out with a proposal to make it an autonomous institution, considering the need to tap the rich bio-resource more effectively.

Separate identity

"The Board needs to have a separate identity. It needs to be provided with not only more funds to step up its activities but also a specific budgetary allocation for the next five years so that it could draw up a road map for better utilisation of the country's bio-resources.

This was the right time as the Eleventh Five Year Plan is being finalised."

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